TheCable

The Lagos state government says it is considering getting COVID-19 vaccines from other sources in a bid to speed up vaccination.

Akin Abayomi, the commissioner of health, told NAN on Sunday that the state is considering vaccinating its entire population in order to achieve herd immunity and prevent the emergence of new strains of the virus.

“While the first national target of vaccination is 60 percent, we in Lagos are looking for vaccines to create full coverage that will be safe,” he said.

“And even for children, as well as other immuno-compromised individuals that do not fall into the normal criteria, as the pace at which we are going is extremely slow.

“We’re looking for avenues and activities to speed this up; donor partners, private sector, through advocacy because it appears that this virus is not going away anytime soon.

“If you vaccinate only 60 percent of your population, the remaining 40 per cent remains vulnerable, and the virus can circulate within that 40 percent and create new strains, which can then affect those that have been vaccinated.

“Countries are now talking about booster shots, whereas in Lagos, we haven’t been able to deliver more than one per cent of the population. We know that the vaccine campaign is critical and to mitigate subsequent waves.”

The health commissioner said Lagos is more interested in the mutations of the virus happening in its communities.

He said the state is already studying the dimensions of the fourth wave of the virus.

“We are not only interested in the importation of variants, we’re also interested in the mutations that are happening in our community because we too can export variants to other states,” he said.

“We’re already looking at the fourth wave, because we’ve studied the first three waves. We’ve understood very clearly what triggers the waves and we know what they are.

“We know that within reason, we can expect a fourth wave, based on the characteristics of first, second and third.”

Lagos has so far recorded 73,721 confirmed cases of COVID-19; 68,807 discharged, 622 deaths, while 4,292 are currently on admission.