COVID-19 Vaccine: Government Budgets N10.6billion For Transportation - EazyFeeds

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Saturday 6 March 2021

COVID-19 Vaccine: Government Budgets N10.6billion For Transportation


 The Federal Government, through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, has set aside more than N10.6billion to transport the COVID-19 vaccine to the 36 states and the 774 Local Government Areas with Kano, Lagos and Katsina leading the pack.


The government also earmarked N1.4billion for the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment while N373million was set aside to purchase Adverse Events Following Immunisation kits, otherwise known as AEFI kits.


This was contained in a document obtained by PUNCH on Friday, which was presented to the 36 governors during a meeting between representatives of the Federal Ministry of Health and the Nigeria Governors Forum.


The document titled, "Estimated Budget for States Rollout of COVID-19 Vaccines (end-to-end)" showed that Kano State, which has 44 local government areas, has the highest budget for transportation at N685.4million while N558.6m will be spent on distributing the vaccines to Lagos State, which is the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic.


About N476million would be spent on distributing vaccines in the President's home state of Katsina, while N396.3million will be spent in Oyo State.


Bayelsa, which has just eight local government areas, has the lowest budget for vaccine transportation which is N121million.


The total amount of money earmarked for the transportation of vaccine, procurement of Personal Protective Equipment, AEFI kits and sensitisation was summed up at N12.7billion.


The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, had on December 22, 2020, told the Senate that the Federal Government would need about N400billion to vaccinate 70 per cent of Nigeria's population.


The Senate leadership subsequently asked Ehanire to bring a budget while they promised to give it immediate consideration.


However, it was learnt that as of Friday, no supplementary budget had been sent to the National Assembly.


Meanwhile, the Nigeria Governors Forum has said it would facilitate the timely release of counterpart funds from state governments to ensure the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out exercise's success.


The NGF also appealed to the Federal Government for logistics support for the 36 state governments to succeed in the vaccination exercise.


Governors of the 36 states made the appeal after a virtual emergency meeting of the NGF on Thursday.


On Tuesday, Nigeria recorded a major milestone in its medical history by receiving 3.94 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID – 19 Vaccine.


The vaccine was received through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Assess Facility popularity known as COVAX.


The Chairman of the NGF, Kayode Fayemi, said the meeting had only one agendum, which was a discussion on the administration of the first batch of the COVAX AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which the government of Nigeria received on March 2, 2021.


According to him, governors received briefings from the Executive Secretary of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, who was in company with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha.


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