Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State in South-West Nigeria has revealed the state government’s plan on COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the effort to bolster mass vaccination of residents in the State.
Sanwo-Olu disclosed that Lagos was aiming to achieve 60 per cent vaccine rollout “when the vaccination programme commences in the coming weeks,” stressing that the figure would help check rate of transmission and build the resilience of the state against the ravaging virus.
The governor spoke on “Sunday Politics”, a live television programme anchored by Channels TV’s Kayode Okikiolu.
Sanwo-Olu said the state government did not have the plan to make the COVID-19 vaccine available to all residents, as the state may not have the resources to do that but he stated that critical segments in the state population would be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity against the pandemic.
Aside the vaccine arrangement being made by the Federal Government for States, the governor said Lagos, which is the epicentre of COVID-19 infection, had activated plans to augment the vaccine that would be delivered to the state.
He said: “As a sovereign, we want the Federal Government to take the lead in getting the vaccine. As a sub-national Government, we are taking our destiny into our own hand. We have started conversation with some of the vaccine manufacturers. I have made contact with Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca. Developers of Moderna have written to us and we have written back to them.
“We are making our own sub-national contacts and part of the things to come out of this effort is that, once we see what the national government is doing in terms of protocols, then we can plan for our rollout. The contacts we made with vaccine developers are at the board level.
“We don’t have to vaccinate the whole of 22 million people in Lagos. The plan is around ensuring that there is herd immunity and that typically speaks to 50 to 60 percent of our population. That’s the target we need to really meet in vaccine rollout.”
On how Lagos would get resources to fund its vaccine programme, the governor said the bulk of the finances would be realised from the private sector donations and international grants.
Sanwo-Olu added that the state government also had allocation for COVID-19 project in its 2021 budget.
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