Federal Govt To Spend Over N2.44tn To Vaccinate 165 Million Nigerians

The Federal Government will need about N2.44tn for the vaccination of 164.8 million Nigerians, who will not have access to free vaccines the country is expecting from the international community.

 

Currently, coronavirus vaccines available globally include those discovered by Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson,  Oxford and Novavax.

 

Recall that the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib, at a   press conference of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Tuesday, said 100,000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would be received by the country at the end of this month.

 

He also said  Nigeria would secure  free delivery of 42 million doses of vaccines, which would be a combination of all the available and approved vaccines currently in the market.

 

According to him, the 42 million doses of the vaccines will only cover 20 per cent of the country’s population, which the National Population Commission, recently put at 206 million.

 

Shuaib added that the NPHCDA, the PTF and the Federal Ministry of Health were working on financial requirements for procuring more vaccines.

 

He, however, said the country needed to cover only 70 per cent of its population with vaccination to battle the virus.

 

But based on his statement that the 42 million doses of vaccines, which Nigeria would get free of charge, would cover 20 per cent of Nigeria’s population, it means 41.2 million Nigerians would vaccinated against COVID-19, leaving 164.8 million others unprotected.

 

Although there are various vaccines,  www.healthline.com  states that Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine  costs $19.5 per dose ( $39 per two doses).

 

The United States’ Food and Drug Administration Agency had last month said Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is administered as a two-dose series, three weeks apart.

 

 

Based on the two-dose requirement for each of the 164.8 million Nigerians, it means the country will need  $6.43bn or N2.44tn (using CBN official exchange rate of N379/$1)  to procure the vaccine for them.

 

A professor of virologist, Oyewale Tomori, in an interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday, gave the costs of other vaccines

 

According to him, Moderna  vaccine is between $10 and $50,  Johnson & Johnson, $10 and Oxford, $3 to $4 per dose.

 

He, however,  advised the Federal Government to not procure vaccines that the country lacked the facility to store.

 

Tomori said procuring a vaccine that would be difficult to store in Nigeria would be like adding to the problem of the pandemic in the country.

 

He said, “There are three or four different types of vaccines at the moment; there is the one from Pfizer that must be stored at -70°C; Moderna vaccine must be stored at -20°C and there are others that can be stored at fridge temperature.”

 

Number of people infected will determine vaccination coverage needed – Tomori

 

Commenting on the coverage of vaccination needed by the country, he stated, “The coverage will depend on the purpose and the vaccine. For Yellow fever, we asked for something about 80 per cent coverage, but for COVID-19 we don’t know the duration of the immunity. Yellow fever, for example, when you get the vaccine, you get it almost for life. But for COVID-19, nobody knows how long the immunity of the vaccine will last.

 

“People have talked about covering 60 per cent of the population. The 20 per cent we are getting from Coarvex will not solve our problem. The answer to say is that we don’t know; it depends on the epidemiology of the disease in a country, the number of people infected and have recovered.”

 

Also, a professor of Virology at the College of Medicine,  Ibadan, Prof. Georgina Odaibo, said the Federal Government must build an effective work plan to ensure proper handling  and application of the vaccine.

 

Odaibo said, “A national body will have to handle the distribution and determine issues around it. I think that the body that is responsible for the distribution of vaccines should handle that. I don’t know the nature and capacity of storage that they have everywhere across the country.

 

“For me, adherence to COVID-19 protocols is number one. Even if you bring vaccine today, you cannot immunise everybody. It would take time before it goes round. It will be good for people to ensure that we practise what we know works – use of face masks, wash your hands and engage in physical distancing. It is very clear, if you practise those things, you would not need to rush for vaccines. We should know that it is not immediately the vaccines are imported that they would go round.”

 

On his part, another  Professor of Virology, Department of Virology, University of Ibadan, Prof. David Olaleye, in an interview with The PUNCH, said, “The Primary Healthcare Development Agency handles the procurement, storage, distribution and utilisation of vaccines.

 

“Neither vaccine nor lockdown is the absolute answer to overcoming COVID-19. The strong recommendation is the non-pharmaceutical approaches such as hand washing, wearing of face masks, use of hand sanitisers and physical distancing. If you are vaccinated today, it will not work the same day.

 

“At the end of the day, we still need to go back to the protection strategies. Vaccination is not a substitute for prevention strategies. The best vaccine today is prevention. Hand hygiene, face covering and physical distancing are the most effective ways of preventing the spread of COVID-19.”