By Abubakar Hashim
A renowned Nigerian Professor of Virology, Prof Oyewole Tamori says that the much expected Pfizer Vaccines being expected in the country, end of January can only work if the trust deficit amongst the people is eradicated.
“The N200 Billion vaccine will not eradicate COVID as there is an astonishingly high level of trust deficit by the Nigerian people on COVID, resulting in vaccine aparthy by a vast majority of the people”
Instead, the Virology Professor advocate intensive risk communications down to rural areas as done for Polio vaccination as it was earlier resisted too. Now, Nigeria is Polio free.
Second, he calls for closing of infrastructure deficit in the country, especially power, that is crucially needed for storage at -10 centigrade of the Vaccines. Another area he mentioned is good road network particularly to rural and riverine areas
He then advised the Federal Government to put on hold the importation of vaccines until Infrastructural sanity is achieved and reasonable level of trust is maintained by the people on COVID-19.
As a way out for now, even with the coming of the vaccines, enforceable COVID measures are desperately needed, as, according to him, vaccination do not totally eradicate the virus. Even with vaccines, masks are compulsory, he concluded.
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