Buhari govt to N10.6bn to transport COVID-19 vaccines across Nigeria

The federal government of Nigeria has budgeted N10.6 billion for the transportation of COVID-19 vaccines to the 36 states of the federation and the federal capital territory.
Recall that the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in Nigeria during the week and Nigeria threw party to welcome it.

However, a document seen by PUNCH, showed that a total of N12.7 billion was budgeted as cost of transportation for the vaccine, procurement of PPE and AEFI kits.

In the document containing the budget details, Kano state has the highest budgetary allocation with N685.4million, while Lagos state, the epicenter of the pandemic, earmarked N558.6million for the transportation of the vaccine.

Bayelsa state has the lowest budgetary allocation for transportation with N121 million.
The budget was presented to the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) alongside representatives of the federal ministry of health, on Thursday, in a meeting.

On Friday, Nigeria commenced its COVID-19 vaccination with doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which was first administered to health workers in Abuja.

The vaccination has been divided into phases. One of the phases includes the distribution of the vaccines to states that have met the requirements of storage and facilities.

As a result, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), which is the agency responsible for vaccines distribution strategy, budgeted N1.4billion for procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) while N373m was set aside for adverse events following immunisation kits (AEFI kits).

However, the NGF appealed to the federal government to support the logistics and inoculation activities to states.

“Following extensive discussions on the vaccine administration, governors called on the Federal Government to take necessary steps to support logistics and inoculation activities in states and resolved to take the following actions to ensure a smooth vaccine roll-out exercise across the country,” Kayode Fayemi, chairman of NGF, noted in a communiqué.