COVID-19: FG May Waste 100,000 Vaccine Doses If...

Medical Doctors in Nigeria have warned the Federal Government that 100,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine the country is expecting may become useless if proper arrangements are not made for their transportation and storage.

The experts who disclosed this includes the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria, Dr Patrick Dakum; a medical virologist, Dr Oladipo Kolawole, and a professor of Virology at the University of Ibadan, David Olaleye amongst others.

The experts advised the government to ensure proper storage and transportation of the vaccine to achieve its desired result.

Recall that the Federal Government had two weeks ago said it was expecting 100,000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine before the end of the month.

Speaking in an interview with the Punch, the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib, who disclosed this during a press conference of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said the country would later in the year receive 42 million free doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, Dakum said the shipping and storage condition of Pfizer vaccine needed -70 degrees Centigrade. According to him, there must be constant power supply at the storage facilities.

He, therefore, warned that the vaccine would be useless if these conditions were not met.

He added, “Nigeria must conclude a vaccination plan and have fridges on site. There’s need for -70 freezers for storage before the commencement of vaccination.

“A robust plan is needed including power back up plans at each of the vaccine storage and vaccination site. If the cold chain is compromised, the vaccine can become useless.”

READ ALSO: Lagos To By-Pass FG To Acquire COVID-19 Vaccines

Another medical virologist at Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State, Dr Oladipo Kolawole, said that the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine could not be guaranteed without proper storage.

He also stressed the need for the federal and state governments to sensitise Nigerians to the need to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Kolawole added that there was the need for the government to liaise with religious leaders to ensure their members turn up for the vaccines.

He said, “A key factor of the success of any vaccination rollout is the population’s attitude towards it. The government needs to sensitise the general population to this, give them adequate information likewise liaising with religious leaders to make sure their communities turn up to get their jabs.

“As regards the facilities or measures that must be put in place, we need good storage facilities to be in place, though Pfizer has developed cutting-edge packaging and storage solutions to meet the needs of the varied locations that will be distributing the vaccine – whether they are in major cities or rural towns.

Meanwhile, the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Prof Babatunde Salako, had said there is no enough space to store the vaccine at the moment.

He also said another major challenge would be how to transport the vaccine at the temperature of -70 degree centigrade to rural areas.

According to him, in future Nigeria may need to buy other types of vaccines that do not require low temperature as Pfizer