Why I have yet to receive COVID-19 vaccine – Sanwo-Olu

The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has given reasons why he is yet to receive doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

He provided the reason scarcely 48 hours after the vaccine arrived in Lagos, which has the largest cases of COVID-19 in the nation.

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu (R), in an isolation centre in Lagos

Sanwo-Olu talked, on Thursday, during the virtual official inauguration of a tertiary health centre in Lekki, Lagos.

He disclosed that he has yet to receive doses of the vaccine due to the rule that declared that health workers should take first.

The Governor, who is the COVID-19 Incident Commander in Lagos, further said he would take the doses of the vaccine on Friday.

Talking about why he is yet to take the shot of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Sanwo-Olu said, “I just want to follow the rules. The rules are that the health workers at the frontline should first take it.

“So, I am pleading with the Commissioner of Health to be gracious and let me also take. So, they have given me a date, tomorrow (Friday) and I am hoping that they would have started giving it to the health workers.”

As indicated in a statement, Sanwo-Olu was also cited as saying that Lagos State spent billions of Naira last year to purchase health equipment, stating that the equipment is in transit.

He said, “For us as a government, we have raised our strength on health, especially our capital expenditure on health. We are currently renovating to a world-class, six of our general hospitals.

“We are currently building two new general hospitals. We are building a children hospital. We are building an international research centre. All these are meant to complement what we have currently.

“We will also scale up a tertiary health centre, Lagos State Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). We will be discussing with you in the next coming months what we want to turn LASUTH to. All of these are to make healthcare accessible and affordable.

“We are trying to stop medical tourism; people travelling several thousand kilometres to go and secure or get health treatment. With good facilities, we will bring down the total cost of health care and provide quality health care.”