The Lagos State Government says a robust vaccination strategy has been established to ensure four million residents of the state are fully vaccinated before the end of December 2021.
The state Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi who disclosed this in a statement on Sunday explained that the mass vaccination is important to prevent a fourth wave of the deadly Coronavirus in the state.
“The Lagos State Government has developed a robust vaccination strategy leveraging on both the strengths of the public and private sectors of our healthcare system with a full understanding that a substantial proportion of the population will need to be vaccinated to mitigate the impact of the fourth wave in Lagos and reduce the impact of the ongoing spread of the COVID-19 virus and prevent the re-emergence of the catastrophes witnessed during the previous waves.
“This strategy dubbed ‘Count Me In! 4 million Lagosians Vaccinated Against COVID-19’ is aimed at targeting the full vaccination of four million Lagos residents before the end of December 2021; and was launched by the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu alongside the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi and the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, in a side event of the 7th African Conference on One Health and Biosecurity which focused on Vaccine strategies,” the statement read in part.
The Commissioner said once this is achieved, it will bring the State closer to the state governor’s mandate to vaccinate 30% of the Lagos population within one year which started in August of 2021.
“This is a concerted effort to achieve the World Health Organization’s (WHO) target of vaccinating 40% of the world before the end of this year. Lagos thus far has only been able to fully vaccinate just under 3% of its population,” Abayomi added.
He stressed that a partnership between public and private companies is essential to achieve the goal.
Abayomi said the State Government, through the Primary Health Care Board, does not have the capacity alone to ramp up vaccination to this massive level in such a short time and before the deadline, hence the need to include the private sector.
“The public-private partnership is similar to the strategy deployed for escalating COVID-19 testing which resulted in a dramatic increase in testing done in Lagos from an average of 200 a day to over 2,000 a day culminating in a total of 800,000 tests in less than a year and Lagos State accounting for more than 30% alone of all COVID-19 PCR tests done in Nigeria.
“This demonstrates the power of public-private partnerships, with the inclusion of the significant capacity of the private sector but government retaining strict regulatory oversight and quality function.
“With this approach, we intend to ramp up our vaccination strategy using the existing public facilities as well as the inclusion of some private facilities. It is imperative to emphasize that the vaccines administered in public facilities is free and would remain free to the public as they were contributed to us by the Federal Government and our donor partners, those wishing to receive the vaccines can go to any of the designated 206 government facilities and receive their dose totally free of charge.”
The Commissioner said those that wish to receive the vaccines within the comforts of a private facility can do so “at a minimal administrative cost of N6,000 for two doses which cover the cost that the private sector will incur to facilitate the administration of the vaccine which includes logistics, personnel, quality oversight, administrative and overhead costs. The cost will be proportionally lower for single-dose or those wishing to take a single booster dose.”
He said no one is compelled to receive their vaccines at any private facility as the vaccines in both are of the same quality and brand.
“The decision to leverage the private sector is based solely on our resolve to include private health facilities and corporate institutions as additional sites for the COVID-19 vaccination administration.
“This is in furtherance of the effort to increase the reach and access to the available vaccines provided through the generous contributions and donations by the Federal Government and our donors,” he added.
Those that require their vaccination at any of the public facilities should visit the national platform at https://publicreg.vaccination.gov.ng to register and schedule their vaccination or register on arrival at any of the 206 public sites.
Those requiring vaccination at any selected private facilities should please, in addition, visit https://lagosvaccine.com to book and pay for their vaccination, either before or after registering on the national platform.
