By Olamide Francis
The Federal Government (FG) has launched an e-registration portal for COVID-19 vaccination in the country in preparedness for the arrival of 3.92 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine it is set to receive today.
Speaking during the official launch of the portal in Abuja on Monday, the minister for health Dr. Osagie Ehanire, noted that the TEACH Strategy for COVID-19 Vaccination and Electronic Management of Immunization Data (EMID) was an important activity of the government to ensure that all Nigerians are vaccinated.
Ehanire promised that registration on the platform would make vaccination easier and faster. He explained that the portal was a programme to capture data and schedule individuals for vaccination. The minister said that the portal contains functionalities to retrieve COVID-19 vaccination certificates by the use of PreVac/Vaccination Number.
Giving a vivid explanation of the TEACH acronym for the 5-point strategic plan for vaccination, the minister said: “T is for Traditional Vaccination Campaign Approach; E for Electronic Self-Registration by Eligible Nigerians; A for Assisted Electron Registration of Eligible Nigerians; C for Concomitant Vaccination alongside Electronic Registration and H for House-to-House Electronic Registration.”
Ehanire explained that the vaccines will be administered in phases assured Nigerians of readiness to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination campaign smoothly.
Commending the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) under the leadership of Dr. Faisal Shuaib for developing a homegrown strategy to deliver the vaccine, he said it was critical in addressing the challenges.
“The introduction of electronic management of immunization data is critical to addressing challenges with integrity and quality data and ultimately, primary healthcare data.
“I, therefore, urge all stakeholders, partners sub-national governments Corporate Organizations to have faith for once, in the plan that the government is developing and align with the initiatives born of years of experience in the immunization space.
“No private hospital or organization has experience with handling this type of vaccine and certainly no experience in vaccine application that NPHCDA has.
“All questions can be directed to the Ministry of Health and NPCDA, but this is not a time to work at cross purposes; it is not a time to be making private arrangements for vaccine procurement and administration.
“Vaccines that are not approved by NAFDAC will be determined as dangerous, and will be seized by Customs Services and NAFDAC, who are on high alert for illegal vaccine importation,” the minister added.
Earlier, the NPHCDA executive secretary Dr. Shuaib said the first phase of the vaccination rollout target covers health and frontline workers.
“The first phase of the vaccination rollout target covers health and front line workers, port of entry( land, air and ports), military rapid response team, laboratory network policemen and petrol station workers.
“The second phase covers the older adults aged 50 years and above, those with morbidities age 18 -49 years of age.
“Those in states, LGAs with high disease burden and other eligible population as the vaccine become available”, Shuaib added.
The e- registration platform is an initiative of the NPHCDA powered by the Federal Ministry of Health for the electronic management of immunization data (EMID).
