There is mounting pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to be administered COVID-19 vaccine injection in the pubic to allay unsafety fears of the medical treatment. There is also arrangement for the president and the vice president to take coronavirus vaccine injection live telecast on television.
Accordingly, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Faisal Shuaib, at the media briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 on Thursday in Abuja, revealed that provision will be made for President Muhammadu Buhari; Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo; and other prominent Nigerian leaders to take the COVID-19 vaccine in the public. He had explained that administering the vaccine publicly is part of efforts to promote awareness.
“We will like to see a situation where Mr. President, the Vice-President, the SGF, critical leaders come and take the vaccine in the full glare of the public to demonstrate that these vaccines are safe. So, we have to make provisions for those.
“Even in developed countries, what we have also seen is that apart from the prioritisation of health workers, you have to also identify critical leaders that you don’t want them to be wiped off by the virus.
“For example, in warfare, if you want to destroy your enemies, you look for the specific leaders, captains, the generals; once you decapitate them, then the soldiers will become weak.
“So, as much as possible, you do not want to also leave your leaders vulnerable to COVID-19, it doesn’t mean you want to prioritise politicians; that is not correct. I emphasised during the last briefing that we will prioritise our health workers because they are the ones in direct contact with cases in isolation units,” Shaibu declared.
The NPHCDA Executive Director had on Wednesday said that about 100,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been requested and expected to arrive in Nigeria at the end of January. The Executive Director added that the federal government will procure 42 million doses of coronavirus vaccines later in the year.