The Federal Government is set to receive 10.1 million coronavirus vaccines in March for Pfizer and other manufacturers.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, made this known while addressing some of the concerns raised at a virtual meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, top government officials and a group of Nigerian scientists on Thursday.
The minister added that aside the 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine being expected in the country, other manufacturers would deliver 10 million doses to the country.
According to him, all the vaccines are due to arrive in the country by March this year.
Ehanire noted that the Federal Ministry of Health in collaboration with other stakeholders had already put in place mechanisms for the management of the vaccines.
He stressed that Federal Government was encouraging the use of IVERMECTIN, while expecting more research to be done on the prophylactic use of the medication.
Also speaking, the Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, said there was need for the strengthening of enforcement of COVID-19 protocols.
He called on state governments to work more closely with the Federal Government and gave assurance that public testing was available for free to Nigerians.
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On his part, the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, disclosed that to scale testing across the country, the NCDC had adopted rapid testing.
According to him, rapid testing was deployed for the last orientation programme of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
He said the NCDC in collaboration with stakeholders was currently working on building the capacity of medical personnel across the country as part of measures adopted by the Federal Government to boost the country’s infectious disease response capabilities.
