Lagos State Goverrnor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said his administration aimed to vaccinate 30 per cent of the state population within one year as parts of recovery strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the state.
While stating this, Sanwo-Olu stressed that vaccine equity remained the only pathway for world leaders to end the COVID-19 pandemic in the globe.
The Governor stated this while speaking at the 2021 “Global Citizen Live Concert,” held at Fela’s Afrika Shrine in Ikeja.
On the vaccine equity, the Governor said, the world must ensure that vaccines were available to all, especially poorer countries that had struggled with supply.
Sanwo-Olu, noted that the situation of unequal distribution of vaccines in which richer nations secured more doses than the size of their populations and are preparing to roll out booster shots, while poorer countries struggled to administer first doses, threatening the global efforts to end the pandemic.
He said: “Our vaccination rate is far below the minimum target of 60 per cent recommended by the World Health Organisation (W.H.O) per city population. At the current rate, it would take about three years to achieve our herd immunity target. We cannot continue at this speed if we seriously want to beat this virus.
“To safely achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, a substantial proportion of our population would need to be vaccinated to lower the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population.
“One of the objectives of attaining herd immunity is to prevent mutations from emerging leading to more aggressive strains. It is important that Lagos achieves herd immunity at the same time with all countries together.
“Our proposal to the private sector is to reserve and administer 50 per cent of the vaccines procured in partnership with the private sector to be made available free of charge at Government health centres.
“We propose to deploy a proven system where those who can pay for vaccines subsidise the cost of vaccination for those who cannot.
“Given the fact that we expect COVID-19 vaccinations to be annual going forward, this is the only sustainable path towards achieving herd immunity and making Lagos free of the virus.
“With our approach, we expect to vaccinate 30 per cent of the population of Lagos within one year.
“This will put us on a better and more sustainable path towards herd immunity. We expect COVID-19 vaccinations to be an annual programme, going forward, as this is the only way to making Lagos free of the virus.”