By Deborah Onyofufeke
The federal government on Monday in Abuja, bemoaned the low COVID-19 vaccination rate in the country, declaring that the proportion of fully vaccinated Nigerians was still low when compared to the set target.

This was made known at the launch of a new vaccination strategy called SCALES 3.0, which is aimed at accelerating integrated COVID-19 vaccination and primary health care services across the country.

Speaking at the launch of SCALES 3.0 strategy, an initiative by National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA,aimed at accelerating integrated COVID-19 vaccination and PHC services across the country, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, explained that Scales 3.0 initiative is an “identified implementation gaps in SCALES 2.0 which brings about more accountability for performance, strengthened electronic data reporting and promote robust demand generation at the community levels.

Noting that,”Nigeria has continued to experience changes in the factors that influence demand and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines”, Mustapha said:”These changing situations are not uniform across the country. ”

“They vary from state to state, and therefore require continuous review of our strategies for promoting demand and ensuring vaccine access and accountability,”he said.

“Earlier in February 2022, we launched optimized SCALES 2.0 strategy, which even though has proven to be effective in ramping up COVID-19 vaccination coverage, the proportion of fully vaccinated Nigerians is still low when compared to the set target,”he regretted.

Açcording to him,”The present record of only 24.4% of the total eligible population of fully vaccinated as at 3rd August, 2022 leaves much to be desired.”

“The SCALES 3.0 strategy will address the identified implementation gaps in SCALES 2.0 and bring about more accountability for performance, strengthen electronic data reporting and promote robust demand generation at the community levels.

“It is safe to state that there is significant decline in deaths arising from COVID-19 as a result of the ongoing vaccination, we should not lower our guards or give in to complacency as the virus is still very much around us and can mutate. We must encourage all around us to get vaccinated,”he said

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He tasked citizens not to “relent on observing the non-pharmaceutical measures – wear the mask, keep physical distance and wash our hands regularly. ”

“Until we have vaccinated at least 70% of eligible Nigerians to achieve herd immunity. No one is safe until everyone is safe,”he said.

On his part, Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, while describing the flag off of the SCALES 3.0 Strategy as “very important event as it marks a major step in our collective resolve to wipe out the COVID-19 virus and at the same time scale up routine immunization from Nigeria”, he added that the “Federal Government has through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) deployed several strategies including the optimized SCALES 2.0 strategy to ramp up integrated COVID-19 vaccination and Primary Health Care services across the country. ”

Noting that,”Consequently, our vaccination effort has scaled up significantly,”Ehanire however said:”The total performance still leaves much to be desired.”

” As of 3rd August 2022, only 24.4 percent of the total eligible population have been fully vaccinated. Only 3 states (Nasarawa, Jigawa and Kano) have vaccination coverage of over 50 percent, leaving 34 states performing sub-optimally in terms of COVID-19 vaccination coverage. Hence, the need for the team to refine the current SCALES 2.0 strategy to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination, identifying unique enablers per state and deploy state-specific strategies”,he said.

He explained that SCALES 3.0, strategy will be anchored on an intensive 3 months campaign, performance-based incentives, optimized integrated package of services, decentralized and incentivized demand generation strategies, partners coordination and accountability, and state-specific context and strategies.”

“Based on these principles, the strategy is poised to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus and gain the desired herd immunity as quickly as possible,” he said.

Ehanire said:”While we are glad that Nigeria is ranked among the high-performing countries in terms of COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Africa, we can’t but acknowledge the fact that we still have a lot of work to do as the statistics quoted above has shown.”

“We recognize the fact that the campaign can only succeed if there is mass mobilization of the people. We are therefore calling on state governors, local government chairmen, traditional and religious leaders, the media, and every Nigerian to lend their support in mobilizing the unvaccinated eligible individuals to register and get vaccinated or walk into the nearest vaccination centres and get vaccinated.

“Let me assure all Nigerians that the Federal Government remains committed to the provision of safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccines in the country backed with accountability and transparency. Every COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria is tagged and tracked by National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to ensure quality and potency are maintained across the supply chain.

“We are fully guided by the principle of safety, efficacy, transparency, and accountability in the mass vaccination campaign. No vaccine will be allowed to enter any vaccination site without due authentication and safety verification. We will never compromise on vaccine safety and vaccination standards,”he said.

Also speaking, Executive Director,NPHCDA,Dr Faisal Shuaib, recalled that six months ago, in February, Nigeria flagged off its optimized SCALES 2.0 strategy to ramp-up integrated COVID-19 vaccination and PHC services.

” With this strategy, our national vaccination coverage progressed from about 17 million to 40 million as at 8th August 2022 for the first dose. These figures represent over a 100% increase in coverage during the first phase. This progress is attributable to the leadership provided by the Chairman of the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19, the Honourable Minister of Health, State Governors, Traditional and Religious Leaders but especially the dedication and tenacity of front line health workers. Please let us give them a round of applause,”he said.

According to him,”As at 8th of August 2022, the number of eligible persons who are fully vaccinated currently stands at 27,703,573. Therefore, the proportion of the total eligible population that have been vaccinated in Nigeria is 25%.”

“Although the progress we recorded with optimized SCALES 2.0 implementation is appreciable, our strategic review showed that there has also been an increased low COVID-19 risk perception which needs to be overcome. Our disaggregated states performance analyses also revealed that there are important state-specific bottlenecks that must be addressed in their various contexts for us to see improved vaccine uptake,”he said.

He explained that “it is for these reasons, among others, that the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 and the Federal Ministry of Health through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency has come up with SCALES 3.0, which we are here to officially flag off.”

” SCALES 3.0 is an evidence-based update that fixes the bugs in SCALES 2.0 and uses human-centered demand generation design to address low COVID-19 risk perception in the country.

“The strategy retains integration of COVID-19 vaccination with other PHC services, but uses an implementation approach that seeks to address bottlenecks on service delivery, communication, accountability, logistics, EMID and supportive supervision from bottom-up and state specific contexts,”he said.