The National Primary Health Care Development Agency has enjoined states to deploy strategies that help ensure access and delivery of COVID-19 vaccination to the eligible population.
Executive Director, NPHCDA, Faisal Shuaib, made the call yesterday in Abuja during Pathfinder International’s end of project knowledge-sharing event for the Accelerating Equitable Access, Acceptance and Uptake of COVID-19 Vaccines (ACCESS) Project.
Represented by the programme manager for immunization, FCT, Okoli Nicholas, he said doing so would also help them achieve herd immunity in COVID-19 vaccination.
Herd immunity involves the indirect protection from an infectious disease which happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.
He said, “We all know that for us to attain herd immunity, a significant number of the population must have been vaccinated. Our target is to vaccinate every eligible person, 18 years and above, in Nigeria. That translates to about 70 per cent of the population. Today, we’re just about 60.1% as against our target of 70%.”
Country Director, Pathfinder International, Amina Dorayi, said Pathfinder International, with the support of the MacArthur Foundation, implemented ACCESS Project, in Kano, Kaduna and FCT to increase access to an equitable distribution and delivery of COVID- 19 vaccination.
