Nigeria will need to acquire more refrigerators and freezers from the -20 degrees to the +2 – and +8 types if it plans to receive the Covid-19 vaccines allocation nearing production.
Oyewale Tomori, a professor of virology, says it is in the interest of the country to steer clear of freezers with temperatures ranging from -70 degrees and below since the country’s electricity supply can hardly cope with such low temperatures.
“First, we may have enough freezer facilities to store the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) vaccines we have now but I think we will need additional freezers to store Covid-19 vaccine. No matter the type of vaccines we eventually receive, we certainly will need to prepare the facilities for storage,” the former vice-chancellor at Redeemers University told BusinessDay.
But the Federal Government does not see the country pursuing vaccination for its citizens as industry experts and other stakeholders expect it should.
It has identified logistics challenges such as the lack of adequate refrigerating capacity as a wall between it and the vaccines.
Building capacity such as this seems to be mainly donor-driven. Since 2017, a $250-million effort led by Gavi has delivered more than 15,300 solar direct-drive fridges to African countries, including nearly 5,400 to Nigeria.
Boss Mustapha, the Presidential Taskforce Committee (PTF) chairman, has resigned the country’s fate to the use of facemask as the most effective prevention, noting that the country does not fall into the category of vulnerable countries that will need the vaccines first.
However, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, suggests that Nigeria among 92 middle- and lower-income countries unable to foot their Covid-19 vaccines bill are on track for equal access to the vaccine just as higher-income countries under the provision of COVAX, a platform created to protect the most vulnerable globally.
COVAX is the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European Commission, and France’s answer to worries over how poor economies hounded by recession such as Nigeria will access a vaccine that wealthier countries have the capacity to buy up all at once.
The programme coordinated by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the WHO, is a conduit pipe that will ensure no country receives more than enough doses to vaccinate more than 20 percent of its population until all countries in the financing group have been offered this amount.
Following that, self-financing countries and economies participating in the facility can request vaccine doses sufficient to vaccinate between 10 to 50 percent of their populations, based on the level of their funding.
“Once any of the COVAX portfolio vaccines have successfully undergone clinical trials and proved themselves to be both safe and effective, and have received regulatory approval, available doses will be allocated to all participating countries at the same rate, proportional to their total population size,” Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, explained in a statement.
“A small buffer of about 5 percent of the total number of available doses will be kept aside to build a stockpile to help with acute outbreaks and to support humanitarian organisations, for example, to vaccinate refugees who may not otherwise have access.”
With 180 governments now involved, COVAX pools funding to invest in the production and the most diverse portfolio of promising Covid-19 candidates.
For wealthier governments paying into it, Gavi says the facility is an insurance policy that increases their chances of securing the Covid-19 vaccine doses they need for their citizens.
In the meantime, Gavi and its alliance partners WHO and UNICEF say they are helping health systems prepare for a vaccine by providing training and infrastructure so that as soon as safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines are available, health systems are ready to ensure doses reach people that need them the most.
Health industry observers expect that Nigeria should still be concerned about vaccinating the high-risk and the vulnerable group as determined by the epidemiology of the disease in Nigeria.
The vulnerable such as front-line health workers, nurses, doctors, lab personnel, and other health workers likely to be in contact with patients and their samples need the vaccine.
“The fact that Gavi can only cover 20 percent of our population is no excuse for us to fold our arms and leave our people at the mercy or discretion of the donors. Nigeria should reorder her priorities and provide needed vaccines for her citizens,” Tomori said.
