Kogi State is set to begin administering the COVID-19 vaccine to its residents, after a three weeks delay.
Its Commissioner for Health, Saka Haruna said the state will receive doses of the vaccine today ahead of the rollout, according to The Cable.
Haruna also said the residents will be given “unhindered access to receive the vaccine”.
Kogi is the only state yet to begin administering the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to residents, three weeks after the country began its rollout.
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) had attributed the delay to two factors: The state’s “concerns around the contradictory information about the vaccines” and the non-repair of its cold-chain store.
When the vaccine doses arrived Nigeria, the state governor, Yahaya Bello, had repeatedly denied the existence of COVID-19 in Kogi, insisting that the vaccination was among their least concerns.
Bello said: “COVID-19 is just a minute aspect of what we’re treating in Kogi State. I’m not going to subject the people of Kogi State to vaccination, or I will not make them guinea pigs.”
