Investing in vaccine procurement will improve Primary Healthcare – NPHCDA

The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has stated that vaccine procurement by the Federal Government will also help boost Nigeria’s Primary Healthcare system.

This was disclosed by Dr Faisal Shuaib, Executive Director of the NPHCDA in an interview on Friday, where he also said that the agency was prepared for the smooth transition of vaccine deployment.

He added that the training and capacity building and measures on cold storage of vaccines being implemented would contribute to boosting Nigeria’s Healthcare system.

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“This holistic approach to health system strengthening, which is driven through the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, is based on global standards and is in line with observations and recommendations recently made by our donors and development partners.

“Any idea or report that says this approach does not prioritise strengthening of the health system, stems from a lack of complete understanding of the health system and should be disregarded,” he said.

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He added that the FG was committed to securing the COVID-19 vaccines, taking into consideration safety, efficacy, cost and required logistics, to prevent the local spread of the disease.

“As the country awaits the arrival of the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine in February, the PTF has called on State governments to put all the necessary logistics in place to ensure a successful vaccination exercise,” he said.

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What you should know 

• The NPHCDA earlier stated that it was working to fix healthcare value chain roadblocks that might affect the fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
• Nairametrics reported this month that the Federal Government, through the NPHCDA, announced its distribution plan for the Covid-19 vaccine deployment in Nigeria.
• The NPHCDA also revealed that all states will initially receive 4,000 vaccines during the first phase, as the FG urges that healthcare workers and the elderly be made priority in receiving the vaccination.
• Meanwhile, the National Assembly has asked the Federal Ministry of Health to suspend further action on plans to spend the sum of N10 billion released by the Federal Ministry of Finance to fund the production of Covid-19 vaccines.