By Abba Gwale
COVID-19 vaccination in Kano and 10 other States is still uncertain as the Federal Government says it has yet to receive the lists of their frontline health workers.
This is according to a progress chart sent to the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency on Saturday tagged, ‘Update from COVID-19 Vaccination Operations Room.
The states include Kano, Kogi, Osun, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Katsina and Taraba.
But some of the affected states faulted the NPHCDA in their separate reactions saying that they had submitted the lists. They also blamed the agency for the confusion.
Recall that the Federal Government had on Tuesday received 3.94 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from COVAX facility, an initiative co-led by the Vaccine Alliance, GAVI and the World Health Organisation.
The facility was set up to ensure equitable access to a COVID-19 vaccine by dividing about two billion doses across 92 low-and middle-income countries.
The Federal Government began the vaccination of Nigerians against the deadly pandemic on Friday when health workers at the National Hospital, Abuja received doses of the vaccine.
On Saturday, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo were vaccinated against the COVID-19.
The Executive Director of the NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, had on Thursday warned that his agency would not make the vaccine available to states which had not met the criteria set for its distribution.
It was gathered that one of the criteria was the list of health workers, which the agency asked states to submit.
States that met all criteria set by the NPHCDA include: Ekiti, Lagos, Adamawa, Edo, FCT, Kaduna, Kebbi, Ogun, Oyo, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara while 25 states and the Federal Capital Territory had submitted the lists of health workers in their primary, secondary and tertiary facilities.
The states that complied include Ekiti, Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bauchi, Benue, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, Imo, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Yobe, Ondo, Akwa Ibom and Zamfara.
Ekiti, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Ogun, Lagos and Zamfara states shared a “comprehensive lists of primary, secondary and tertiary health workers.”
The states that have yet to comply include Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, Kogi, Plateau and Taraba states.
Report says 12 states have yet to set up operation rooms for vaccine distribution. They were identified as: Abia, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Ondo and Taraba.
About nine states have also failed to set up technical working groups.
