In a race to vaccinate at least 4 million residents before the end of December 2021, the Lagos State government is involving private health care service providers who will charge N6,000 per head to have willing residents inoculated at their facilities.
Akin Abayomi, Lagos State commissioner for health, who dubbed the charge as “administrative fee” said the government was resorting to this to enable it to meet up the 4 million mass vaccination target by the end of this year.
The mass vaccination programme tagged ‘Count Me In’, which was recently launched by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is targeted at vaccinating at least four million residents before the end of 2021. The programme has the backing of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency whose director-general, Faisal Shuaib, was a part of the launch.
According to Abayomi, on Sunday, achieving the target would bring Lagos closer to vaccinating 30 percent of its population within one year which started in August of 2021.
“This is a concerted effort to achieve the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) target of vaccinating 40 percent of the world before the end of this year. Lagos thus far has only been able to fully vaccinate just under 3 percent of its population.
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The state government, through the Primary Health Care Board, does not have the capacity alone to ramp up vaccination to this massive level in such a short time and before the deadline, hence the need to include the private sector.
“The public-private partnership is similar to the strategy we deployed for escalating our Covid-19 testing which resulted in a dramatic increase in testing done in Lagos from an average of 200 a day to over 2,000 a day culminating in a total of 800,000 tests in less than a year and Lagos State accounting for more than 30 percent alone of all Covid-19 PCR tests done in Nigeria. This demonstrates the power of public-private partnerships, with the inclusion of the significant capacity of the private sector but the government retaining strict regulatory oversight and quality function,” said Abayomi.
The state believed that with this approach, it would ramp up vaccination using existing public facilities as well as the inclusion of some private facilities.
Abayomi reaffirmed that vaccination at any of the 206 designated public facilities was free as the vaccines were donated to Lagos by the Federal Government and donor partners.
“However, those that wish to receive the vaccines within the comforts of a private facility can do so at a minimal administrative cost of N6,000 for two doses which covers the cost that the private sector will incur to facilitate the administration of the vaccine which includes logistics, personnel, quality oversight, administrative and overhead costs,” he explained.
