Nigeria: Buhari, Osinbajo to get COVID-19 jab live, an initiative to spread awareness

“I emphasized during the last briefing that we will prioritize our health workers because they are the ones in direct contacts with cases in isolation units".

To drive awareness about the COVID-19 jab in Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, the President, Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice President and Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) are the first among other prominent Nigerians to receive the COVID-19 jab live on television, according to a report by HumAngle. 

 Signing the statement Faisal Shuaib, the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said in Presidential Task Force (PTF) briefing earlier on Thursday, in Abuja.

Adding on the distribution and prioritizing strategy in the country, Shuaib noted;

“what it means is that on Tuesday, I had mentioned that we will like to see a situation where President, the Vice President, the SGF, critical leaders come and take the vaccine in the full glare of the public to demonstrate that this vaccine is safe. So we have to make provisions for those. But even in developed countries, what we have seen is that apart from the prioritization of health workers, you have to also identify critical leaders that you don’t want them to be wiped off by the virus".

Shuaib further mentioned about the COVID-19 jab that, “said for example, in warfare, if you want to destroy your enemies, you look for specific leaders, captains, the generals, once you decapitate them, then the soldiers will become weak. So, as much as possible you do not want to also leave your leaders vulnerable to Coronavirus, It doesn’t mean you want to prioritize politicians, that is not correct.”

However, he focused on prioritizing the front HealthLine workers stating, “I emphasized during the last briefing that we will prioritize our health workers because they are the ones in direct contacts with cases in isolation units".