COVID19: Governors advised to enforce vaccination in their states

Governors in Nigeria have been advised by the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency to enforce COVID 19 vaccination in their various states.

The agency said state governments need to step up mass vaccination against COVID-19 as part of moves to combat the virus.

Caracal Reports gathered that NPHDA in its latest advisory urged the state governors to enact and enforce vaccination mandates for local and state government workers.

This is coming as the government is worried about the percentage of people that have been vaccinated in the country.

As of January 9, the percentage for fully vaccinated Nigerians is 4.2 percent while those that had taken their first dose remained grounded at 9.8 percent.

Meanwhile, NCDC said there was an increment in the number of death from COVID 19 cases. In one of its latest updates, it said 38 deaths have been recorded between January 1 and January 8.

Despite the increasing number of cases and deaths, some states have not vaccinated up to 200,000 individuals while Abia, Kogi and Niger states have not commenced administration of booster shots.

While some states had commenced the booster administration, analysis by our correspondent revealed that Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Imo, Kwara, Sokoto and Yobe had yet to administer boosters up to 100 residents.

While Imo had only administered ten booster shots, Ebonyi administered 52, Akwa Ibom administered 67 among others.

But the NPHCDA in its bid to speed up vaccination, in its advisory, told governors that it was part of their responsibility to enact and to enforce vaccine mandate on state and local government workers.

The advisory partly reads, “Enact and enforce vaccine mandate for all state and local government workers, direct mandatory set up of mass vaccination sites in public places including markets, parks, event centres, stadia and academic institutions.

“Approve and direct the release of state counterpart funds for advocacy, communication and social mobilization, logistics and additional teams in quarterly tranches.

“Pay weekly unscheduled visits to at least one mass vaccination site to supervise and motivate the vaccination teams, chair weekly review meetings with traditional and religious leaders to address vaccination gaps.