The Lagos State Government has said that fully vaccinated residents may have to take extra doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as a safety precaution against the changing virus. This was revealed recently by the Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, during a briefing in Ikeja, Lagos. While noting that the vaccine is certainly protecting the population from severe disease and death, Abayomi said that as the virus is changing, it may require that people need to be given more than two doses. He said: “You may require a booster, which is the first, second and subsequent doses because we have also discovered that even though the vaccine stops you from getting seriously sick, it may not necessarily stop you from catching COVID.
“We do know that some people even who are fully vaccinated with two doses will still catch COVID, and some people will get quite sick and occasionally, some people may die. But certainly, the people that are dying who are not vaccinated are much higher than the people who are dying who have been vaccinated”. Professor Abayomi explained that the state government plans to vaccinate 30 percent of Lagos residents by the end of the year. According to him, scientists around the world are toying with the idea that a third or fourth dose may be required. Meanwhile, the members of the Diplomatic Community in Lagos have scored the state government high on its COVID-19 response and management effort, which have seen the nation’s commercial capital overcome three successive waves of the global pandemic.
Speaking during a visit to Professor Abayomi, members of the Diplomatic communities agreed that the Lagos State Government has done a lot to mitigate the scourge of the infection, while pledging to continue to offer support to the COVID-19 Lagos response, directly and indirectly. In her remarks, the Consul General of France in Nigeria, Laurence Monmayrant said she is impressed by the bio-security facilities that were put in place at IDH by the State Government, to prosecute the war against the global pandemic. “I’m really impressed by what I have seen. This is really something we have been looking at since the beginning of the pandemic; we have seen that Lagos State has done a lot. “It is one thing to read and see it in the media report, and it is another thing to come and see on the spot what is happening here, so it was a very interesting day here today. Monmayrant harped on the need to ensure that more citizens are vaccinated as a way to mitigate the new wave of the pandemic.
