Covid-19 Vaccine: Nigeria’s Disqualification, Shameful, Unpardonable -PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described as shameful and unpardonable that a nation as important as Nigeria is being excluded from Covid-19 vaccine intervention of the World Health Organization (WHO) owing to the incompetence and corruption of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration.
The PDP specifically noted that in spite of the billions of naira the APC administration claimed to have spent on the Covid-19 effort, it was unable to provide the minimum standard requirement of vaccine storage at the requisite -70 degrees Celsius.
The party said that Nigeria’s exclusion by the World Health Organization (WTO), from the list of nations to receive Covid-19 vaccines following the inability of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to provide the simple vaccine storage requirement has further vindicated its stand that the APC-led administration is a total failure.
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, said that the embarrassing situation further confirmed its position that the APC administration is completely incapable of carrying out simple governance tasks, which is the reason the nation is in her present social and economic dire straits.
The PDP said; “Only last month, our party alerted the nation and tasked the Buhari administration on its lethargic approach to the issue of Covid-19 vaccine and other therapeutics; a caution which was dismissed by the APC and the Buhari administration.
“Nigerians can now see that the claims of commitment by the APC administration are mere media hypes that add no value beyond announcement of figures of infected persons, deaths, recoveries, discharges and issues of local protocols without decisive effort towards epidemiology, researches, production of equipment, therapeutics and other technical requirements, such as vaccine storage to stave off the pandemic in our country.
“This development has also confirmed our insistence that the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 is a mere circus group of incompetent politicians, and has no capacity to tackle the spread of the pandemic in our country.
“It also validates the widespread call for the dissolution of the PTF. It is indeed sad that because of the corruption and incompetence of the APC administration, our dear nation, which was once a clear continental leader and global competitor in all fields, has fallen so low that it cannot provide simple vaccine storage in a time of pandemic,” the PDP said.
It continued; “Against this ugly backdrop, our party restates our call for immediate dissolution of the PTF on Covid-19 to pave way for a concerted private sector driven effort in the fight against the pandemic, since the Buhari administration has failed the nation.
“Our party urges all well-meaning Nigerians in the public health, pharmaceutical, manufacturing and logistics sub-sectors to immediately rally to rescue our nation from this horrible situation”.
The PDP, therefore, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to accept the ineffectiveness of his administration and seek help from more capable hands as well as adopt the PDP proactive model in fighting the dreaded Ebola virus disease, as a sure measure to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) had said it allocated about 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to four African countries – Cape Verde, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tunisia.
Nigeria and other African countries were not included in this batch of vaccine allocation to fight the ravaging Coronavirus on the continent.
WHO said that the 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which had already received its Emergency Use Authorization, had been allocated to the four African countries that had the capacity to store and distribute doses at minus 70 degrees Celsius.
“About 320,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which has already received WHO Emergency Use, have been allocated to four African countries – Cabo Verde, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tunisia – which have the capacity store and distribute doses at minus 70 degrees Celsius”, according to WHO in a statement on the United Nations news website.
The WHO statement, however, said the joint UN-led COVAX initiative aims to start shipping about 90 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Africa in February, which is expected to be the continent’s largest ever mass vaccination roll-out campaign in recent history.
The Federal Government of Nigeria had earlier set the end of January as target date for the arrival of 100,000 COVAX vaccines but later said it would arrive in February.
The country also assured that it had adequate storage facility to hold more than the Covid-19 vaccine doses being expected from WHO-led COVAX initiative.
In the statement, WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said that the deployment was a “critical first step” to ensure countries access to vaccines.
“Africa has watched other regions start Covid-19 vaccination campaigns from the side-lines for too long. This planned roll-out is a critical first step to ensuring the continent gets equitable access to vaccines”, Moeti said.
Moeti also said that the announcement of the commencement of shipment was to enable African nations to fine-tune their planning for Covid-19 immunization campaigns.
He urged the countries to finalize their immunization plans.
“We urge African nations to ramp up readiness and finalize their national vaccine deployment plans. Regulatory processes, cold chain systems and distribution plans need to be in place to ensure vaccines are safely expedited from ports of entry to delivery”, she added.
“We can’t afford to waste a single dose,” she said.
Nigeria had said last week that it was planning to seek additional supply of Covid-19 vaccines from Russia and India to shore up the supply expected from WHO.
Also Nigeria is collaborating with other countries under the auspices of the African Union to secure 670 million vaccine doses for the continent which will be distributed in 2021 and 2022 as countries secure adequate financing, according to WHO.
The rollout of the AstraZeneca/Oxford AZD1222 vaccine is subject to the vaccine being listed for Emergency Use by WHO, which is currently reviewing the vaccine and the outcome is expected soon, according to the agency.
WHO had said that the final shipments will be based on production capacities of vaccine manufacturers and the readiness of countries.
It further stated that recipient countries were required to submit finalized national deployment and vaccination plans to receive vaccines from the COVAX facility.
The statement said initial 90 million doses will support countries to inoculate 3 per cent of the African population most in need of protection, including health workers and other vulnerable groups in the first half of 2021.
It added that “as production capacity increases and more vaccines become available the aim is to vaccinate at least 20 per cent of Africans by providing up to 600 million doses by the end of 2021.”