COVID-19 Vaccination: States That Meet Criteria To Receive Vaccines – FG

COVID-19 vaccination is not yet certain in some states as the Federal Government disclosed that 11 states are yet to submit the lists of their frontline health workers.

The states include Kogi, Kano, Bayelsa, Osun, Delta, Cross River jigawa, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Katsina.

The list is according to a progress chart sent to 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) on Saturday tagged, ‘Update from COVID-19 Vaccination Operations Room.’

On Tuesday, the Federal Government received 3.94 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from COVAX Facility, an initiative co-led by the Vaccine Alliance, GAVI and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The facility was set up to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccine by dividing about two billion doses across 92 low-and-middle-income countries.

READ ALSO: Presidency Says COVID-19 Vaccine Has No Side Effect On Buhari

The Federal Government on Friday began the vaccination of Nigerians against the deadly disease. The health workers of the National Hospital, Abuja, were the first to receive doses of the vaccine.

President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo were vaccinated against the deadly disease on Saturday.

On Thursday, the Executive Director of the NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, warned that his agency would not make the vaccine available to states which had not yet met the set criteria for its distribution.

It was learnt that one of the criteria was the list of health workers, in which the agency asked the states to submit.

As at Sunday, the NPHCDA progress chart measured the compliance of the 36 states and the FCT using five criteria, which include states that have submitted the list of health workers in their employ; states that have health facilities for COVID-19 vaccination sites; states that have health facilities in treatment and isolation centres; states that have submitted the list of focal persons for e-registration and states that have set up technical working groups and operations rooms.

A review of the documents showed states that have met the NPHCDA set criteria include: Ekiti, Lagos, Adamawa, Edo, FCT, Kaduna, Kebbi, Ogun, Oyo, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara.

The document stated that states that had submitted the roll of their health workers in the primary, secondary and tertiary facilities were 25 and the Federal Capital Territory.

The 25 states included Ekiti, Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bauchi, Benue, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, Imo, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Yobe, Ondo, Akwa Ibom and Zamfara.

According to the report Ekiti, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Ogun, Lagos and Zamfara shared a “comprehensive lists of primary, secondary and tertiary health workers.”

The document also stated that 28 states and the FCT have submitted lists of health facilities for COVID-19 vaccination sites while eight states are yet to comply.

The states that have not done that included Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, Kogi, Plateau and Taraba states.

The report added that 12 states have yet to to set up operation rooms for vaccine distribution. The states are Abia, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Ondo and Taraba.

Lastly, about nine states have failed to set up technical working groups.