Tunbosun Ogundare
The Lagos State government has raised concern over the continuous reluctance of people in the state to present themselves for COVID-19 vaccination, saying the development is not acceptable for a state considered to be the epic centre of the disease in the country.
The state immunization coordinator, Ministry of Health, Dr Olubunmi Akinlade expressed this worry at a media dialogue and advocacy to promote the uptake of immunization and nutrition among children under two years and the COVID-19 vaccination.
The two-day media roundtable was organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in conjunction with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) Lagos.
The vaccination coordinator, who is one of the resource persons at the forum and spoke on the COVID-19 vaccination update in Lagos State, said despite Lagos State remaining the epic centre of COVID-19 in the country, just only about 27 per cent of 8 million adults targeted for vaccination have vaccinated so far.
She said so many people still don’t see the reason they should get vaccinated despite aggressive education that the COVID-19 vaccine is not only safe but also saves lives.
She said even at that, some took only the first dose of the vaccine and never bother to take the second or third doses which she said are also necessary to be fully vaccinated.
She said the target by the state is to vaccinate 69,000 people daily based on the eight million targets but that the high reluctance of people to get vaccinated is greatly slowing down the exercise.
According to her, only about 20,000 to 30,000 people present themselves for vaccination each day and such a figure is not encouraging more so that the virus is still around and that some people contract it and die without showing the symptoms.
Mrs Akinlade, however, said the state government has made it so easy by designating many primary health centres and about 450 mobile outlets in addition across the state for people to access vaccination either as first-timers or those for the second or third doses or the booster.
She, therefore, urged those who are yet to get vaccinated to do so at any of the designated centres near them as they would need to protect themselves and the people around them.
In his remarks at the forum, the Lagos State Director, of the National Orientation Agency, Dr Waheed Ishola, said both NOA and UNICEF believe so much in the role the media can play in bringing this issue and others that formed the discussion at the roundtable to the front burner to get all the stakeholders to live up to their responsibilities.
He said the media can educate particularly the general public on this public health concern and the huge importance of having healthy people to the socio-economic development of a country.
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