Oluchi Chibuzor
In an effort to increase vaccination, the Lagos State Government in partnership with The Doctors Nigeria, has launched COVID-19 mobile vaccination campaign initiative.
This, according to the organisers, is to reduce the mileage between the shot and recipients of the vaccines at strategic locations within the state.
Speaking to journalists recently in Lagos, the Executive Producer, ‘The Doctors’, a TV health programme, Dr. Adedayo Osholowu, said the partnership would further drive up the rate of vaccination in the state in line with the World Health Organisation goal of 70 per cent by April 2022.
He hinted that they have been able to vaccinate over 200 people, a figure he said was beyond the national average.
Osholowu also praised the effort of the Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board for providing them with the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines along with the healthcare professionals that are involved in the project.
“We realised that with the federal government taking delivery of 40 million of COVID-19 dosage of vaccines and only 7.7 million people of our population which is two per cent of our population are vaccinated. This shows that more people need to get vaccinated that is why we have decided to take it to strategic locations.”
Meanwhile it would be recalled that the country destroyed more than 1 million expired vaccines last month.
Also this is as the minister of state for health, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora had acknowledged that the country was dealing with hesitancy, adding “we have a large stock of vaccines now.
“We desire to double or triple our vaccination rate … to be able to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating not less than 70 percent of our population, but we are still dealing with vaccine hesitancy,” he stated recently.
Commenting on hesitancy, Dr. Osholowu hinted that “Over the past 10 days we have met with over 20,000 people and today we vaccinated number 201 which is a higher percentage than the national average.”
However, speaking about the efforts of the current administration of the Lagos state government led by the Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the MD/ CEO Lagos Bus Services Limited, Mr. Idowu Oguntona, said the newly acquired hospitality bus would be deployed in strategic locations across the state.
According to him, the hope is that they can increase the acceptance rate of vaccination and “I think one of the challenges is that people might be reluctant in moving from home or work to a vaccination center.
“So this effort is targeted at taking the vaccines to the people, as we got the platform and the buses that we can make available to drive the campaign. We believe with their expertise they can meet people and get them vaccinated to take the stress from people; wherever you are the bus will reach you as they provide the vaccination and if there are questions they are going to provide information, ” he stated.
Similarly, the MD/CEO, Landmark Group Hospitality, Mr. Paul Onwuanibe, noted that the partnership was coming at the right time as everybody needs to be more conscious of the COVID-19.
“There is a larger possibility of people who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated in this kind of environment where they are getting entertained just by having the facility close to them.”
