The National Assembly has assured Nigerians that there will be no political play in the sharing of the COVID-19 vaccine.
With the second phase of the pandemic, the Nigerian government is expected to receive it’s vaccine soon.
This was made known by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Primary Healthcare and Communicable Diseases, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, who said that the joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives held several meetings with officials of the Federal Ministry of Health on modalities for the administration of the vaccines when they arrive.
He said it was agreed that the health personnel on the front line should be the first set of Nigerians to be vaccinated.
He said those already on admission at the various isolation centres and the elderly with cases of underlining ailments would also be considered before administering the vaccines on members of the general public.
He said, “What the Presidential Task Force has been doing in concert with the Federal Ministry of Health and in particular, the National Healthcare Development Agency, is to ensure that we get the quantity that we need as a country.
“There are some that we are expecting from donor agencies and development partners who are trying to help us.
“What the Federal Ministry of Health, working with the Primary Healthcare Development Agency, is doing is not to favour anybody.
“The last meeting we had was on how to raise enough funds to purchase an adequate quantity of the vaccines to make for the shortfall that we had in the provision we made in the budget of 2021.
“We did not agree that any class of people should be given preferential treatment.
“The normal approach adopted anywhere in the world is that the health personnel that are at the front line, treating patients should, first of all, protect themselves.
“We will then look at the poor in society, those in the isolation centres across the country, both private and public health institutions.
“The elderly and those with underlining ailments would be taken care of.
“Nobody has proposed preferential treatment in the administration of the vaccines and there will be no preferential treatment extended to anybody.”
Source: Punch
