TheCable

Akin Abayomi, Lagos commissioner for health, says family members of travellers who test positive for COVID-19 during self-isolation will be vaccinated.

While giving a situation report on the state’s COVID-19 third wave mitigation strategy on Wednesday, the commissioner said Lagos has received an extra batch of COVID-19 vaccine doses from the federal government.

He said some of the doses will be used to vaccinate family members living in the same household as travellers who have tested positive to the virus on day seven, in a bid to protect them and prevent further transmission.

“In view of the fact that we are receiving people in Lagos as travellers who are turning positive on day seven test, we have decided to use some of these extra vaccines that we’ve received from the federal government, in a strategy that we describe as the ring vaccination strategy,” he said.

“It is a well known strategy for preventing the transmission of virus into the community. A number of people who are coming into Lagos are turning positive on day seven. Those individuals, by nationality, are Nigerians returning from countries into Lagos.

“You’ll see an individual that has turned positive, and is typically isolating at home. That makes the members of that household, no matter how careful they are, vulnerable to contracting the virus.

“So, in the ring strategy, when we get somebody that has turned positive who has recently returned from abroad, we will deploy some of the vaccines to vaccinate members of their family and their immediate household, to stop the transmission of the virus from the traveller to family members or people that live in the same home.

“We’re hoping to use these extra vaccines that we’re getting from Abuja in an intelligent way, to really add to our attempt to stop this virus from coming into Lagos.

“But if it does come into Lagos through a traveller, we’ll stop it from being transmitted to their household members and from the household members into the community. This is a very effective strategy that has been deployed in Ebola; it has been deployed in the past for small pox, and we believe if we’re able to deploy it here, it will add to our strategy to reduce the opportunity for Lagosians to experience a third wave.”