The federal and state governments on Tuesday began deliberations on how Moderna vaccine doses Nigeria received from the United States on Monday would be shared.
It was gathered that state commissioners of health held several meetings on Tuesday in Abuja with officials of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 as well as the Federal Ministry of Health.
It was learnt that the meetings also discussed the logistics for moving the doses to states.
Sources at the meetings, however, said the specific amount of doses that would be allocated to each state had yet to be finally decided.
Recall that Nigeria on Monday received four million doses of Moderna vaccine from the US almost a month after 3.9 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses it got from COVAX were exhausted.
The Cross River State Commissioner for Health, Dr Betta Edu, in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Calabar, confirmed that she was part of the meetings in Abuja.
She stated that many meetings were held on Tuesday between state and federal governments.
Edu stated, “Many meetings were held today between the Federal Government and state governments for different reasons. I attended at least two today. The United States donated Moderna vaccine doses to Nigeria. So they have been received. They (FG officials) are doing the apportioning to states now. Maybe by tomorrow or Thursday, we should know the number (allocated to each state).”
She said the meeting also deliberated on logistics.
Another source at the meeting also told one of our correspondents that health stakeholders met on how to distribute vaccine doses.
FG, states discuss guidelines for spending N36bn COVID-19 support fund
It was also gathered that the meeting discussed guidelines for spending N1bn the Federal Government would give to each state as COVID-19 support fund. – Punch.
