Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation
(SGF), says Nigeria has enough vaccines that can cover over 70 percent of the
country’s population before the end of 2022.
Mustapha said this at the national COVID-19 summit which was
held at Muhammadu Buhari Conference Centre in Abuja.
The summit was tagged ‘Pushing Through the Last Mile to End
the Pandemic and Build Back Better’.
He said the vaccines are safe, hence, “it is better and
safer to be vaccinated against the virus”.
Mustapha said the summit was to create the opportunity to
identify successes, gaps and lessons learnt so far in Nigeria’s national
response to the pandemic since March 2020 to date.
He added that the summit is also aimed at developing
strategies to actualise the international commitments towards ending COVID-19
before the end of 2022.
“Today, we are here to assess the level of impact of our
national response and develop strategies as we push through the last mile to
end the pandemic while we build back better,” he said.
“There is no
gainsaying that the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, which was
triggered when the index case was confirmed on the 27th of February 2020,
precipitated significant disruptions to the healthcare system and
socio-economic lives of Nigerians.
”Due to the evolving dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic with
progressive mutations of the virus to more transmissible and deadly variants,
the international community has corroborated the insinuation that the pandemic
will persist for few more years.
“This understanding has impelled world leaders recently to
come to a conclusion that if efforts are not renewed and aggressive measures
are not taken, COVID-19 pandemic will continue to ravage humanity well longer
than earlier envisaged. Hence the need to adopt an ambitious (but cautious)
agenda to end the COVID-19 pandemic by the year 2022.
“Nigeria has invested in enough vaccines that can cover over
70% of our population before the end of 2022. These vaccines are safe and
efficacious, hence it is better and safer to be vaccinated against this virus,
now.”
He said the summit is a follow-up towards Nigeria’s
commitment to the ambitious global agenda/movement to end the COVID-19 pandemic
by 2022 and build back better.
“Global efforts at ending COVID-19 pandemic are
intrinsically linked to the call for nations of the world to take steps towards
strengthening their health system and bio-security- which will make for better
pandemic preparedness and the ability to respond more robustly and swiftly to
future pandemics,” Mustapha said.
He asked stakeholders to encourage all eligible persons to
get vaccinated and keep observing the necessary preventive COVID-19 measures.
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