The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said on Wednesday that the country may likely get vaccines for COVID-19 in January 2021.
He stated this while addressing journalists after the 28th virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting held at Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He disclosed that bilateral talks with manufacturing companies and countries that had developed vaccines had already commenced.
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“We have a technical working group working on the question of the vaccine. We have signed up with the World Health Organisation and GAVI for access to vaccines immediately they are available. But you know that these vaccines are new and the producers are, first of all, not giving any indemnity.
“The big countries where these vaccines are manufactured are of course giving themselves the priority to serve their own citizens first and we hope that the pressure from the World Health Organisation and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) will be able to get a reserve for other countries which themselves are not manufacturing and be able to attend to what we signed up to; we signed up for the advanced market participation of the COVAX,” Ehanire said.
The minister also noted that the type of vaccines to be purchased would depend on its cost, effectiveness and the availability of its storage requirements.
He pointed out that some of the approved vaccines required certain storage equipment which the country lacked at the moment.
He noted that some of the vaccines need to be stored in ultra cold freezers which would mean more costs for the country.
“The one that will be in regulator refrigerators is easy. We have them here. The one that will be in Minus 20 refrigerators is also going to be possible because we also have the freezers here but the one that will be in ultra cold freezers, we hardly have ultra cold freezers in this country and to receive and store in those ultra cold freezers will require that you purchase the ultra cold freezers.
“That means we must be able to get the vaccines that work well, with good cost of storage and cost of delivery. That is the one we will like to get as soon as they are available,” Ehanire added.