President Muhammadu Buhari has charged Nigerian universities and scientists to increase research efforts to develop vaccines that can tackle the COVID-19 and its variants head-on.
Buhari made this call concerning the emergence of the new Omicron variant of COVID-19, which has been discovered to be more contagious.
The variant has triggered global alert as more cases were recorded in Netherland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Israel, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, other European countries, just days after it was identified in South Africa.
The new variant has left world powers like the United Kingdom (UK), United States (U.S.), Israeli, Brazil, Indonesia, among others, scrambling to stop the spread.
President Buhari said universities were expected to serve as centers for scientific and technological discoveries, inventions, values, and character formation as well as drivers of societal growth.
He said: “The development of the vaccine would fortify Nigerians’ immune system against the virus. My administration remained committed to tackling the challenges of sustainable funding for research, capacity building, and employment creation.
“You all know that in the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began its devastating effect on the education sub-sectors, leading to the disruption of universities’ academic activities.
“I, therefore, urge and encourage the universities to intensify their research to come up with a more potent vaccine to fortify our immune system against this dreaded virus.”
