By John Ikani
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has disclosed that only about three per cent of Nigeria’s population has been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Speaking at the 24th General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Mohammed attributed the development to poor access to the vaccine by developing countries.
According to a statement made available to the media by Mr Segun Adeyemi, Special Assistant to the President (Media), Office of the Minister of Information and Culture, the Minister was speaking against the background of the latest mutation (Omicron) of the COVID-19 virus, which had triggered a wave of travel bans on some countries in Africa.
The Minister lamented that whereas most developed countries had already vaccinated 60 per cent and above of their population, most developing countries were currently below five per cent.
He warned that lack of vaccination by developing countries would provide a fertile ground for the COVID-19 virus to mutate, thus threatening the progress already recorded even in the developed countries.
“My country Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, has just vaccinated only about three per cent of our population,” he said.
Mohammed noted that many developed countries had used the advantage of their enormous resources or relationship to sign agreements with manufacturers to supply their countries with vaccines ahead of making them available for use by other countries.
”Even before the clinical trials were completed, millions of doses of the most promising vaccines have been bought by Britain, U. S., Japan and the European block countries. Some of these countries bought doses five times the size of their population.
“There are fears that these unilateral deals will deprive the poorest countries of access to these life-saving commodities,” he said.
The Minister said access to vaccines should be based on the principles grounded in the right of every human to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health without discrimination on basis of race, religion, political belief, economic or any other social condition.
He went on to lament that while developed countries had to increase their health care spending by less than one per cent to cover the additional cost of vaccines, poor countries have to do that by about 60 per cent.
Mohammed added that booster doses would make COVID-19 vaccination a recurring expense, the cost of which would be unaffordable for many developing and poor nations.
