UPDATED: Lagos begins phase two COVID-19 vaccination August 25

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, Monday, announced plans by the state government to commence the moderna vaccination for residents against infection of COVID-19 pandemic amid the third wave.

Sanwo-Olu, who spoke at the statehouse disclosed that  299,992 doses of expected 601,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine earmarked for Lagos,   were received from the Federal Government.

His words: “As a government, we have taken substantial steps to arrest this third wave in its tracks, most notable of them is the increased monitoring and enforcement embarked upon by members of the incident command structure.

“As at August 21, Lagos had recorded 70,563 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of this number, 60,716 have recovered in-community, and 4,387 are currently being managed actively in-community.

“About 5,551 patients have been admitted into our various COVID-19 care centres, with 506 registered fatalities, 135 of which happened in this current third wave.

“Lagos State received its allocation of 299,992 doses of the Moderna vaccine on August 18 for the second phase of the national vaccination campaign, which will begin this Wednesday, August 25.”

Sanwo-Olu explained that the state had developed an elaborate plan to administer the vaccines in 150 centres, noting that the increase in the number of centres is to prevent the gathering of large crowds and ensure the campaign does not become a super-spreader event. W

“We will ensure administration is based solely on appointment which should done through nphcda.vaccination.gov.ng.

Our ultimate goal is to vaccinate 60 per cent of our residents in good time.”

The governor also assured that the second batch of Astrazeneca vaccine was expected in one week, warning against combining the two types of vaccines.

“Let me also reiterate that this Moderna vaccine should not be mixed with the AstraZeneca vaccine. What this means is that only persons who have not been previously vaccinated at all should take the Moderna vaccine.

“If you have previously taken one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, please exercise patience as we await  delivery of a fresh allocation from the Federal Government.

“To help us better manage the pandemic, we have invested in strengthening the capacity of the Lagos State BioBank to sequence positive cases. Sequencing allows us to identify the predominant strains of the COVID-19 virus in our environment, and provides us with information on how to better respond to the pandemic.”

Further, Sanwo-Olu said the state was looking to increase its oxygen production to 1,000 cylinders per day to manage severe cases.

“We have seen a gradual increase in the uptake of oxygen from 75 cylinders per day at the beginning of this third wave, to over 400 cylinders per day currently.

“With our modelling suggesting that we may be requiring even more oxygen supply over the next few weeks, we are exploring several ways of increasing our oxygen capacity, including partnering with the private sector.

“At the moment we have two functioning oxygen plants, at the IDH in Yaba, and in Gbagada, and are looking forward to shortly taking delivery of two additional oxygen plants being built in Lagos State by the Federal Government. Our target is an oxygen supply capacity of 1,000 cylinders per day.”