Red Cross gets $ 350,000 to accelerate vaccination of Nigerians against COVID- 19
• Jabs prevented 20m deaths globally in first 12 months, study finds
THE International Federation of Red Cross ( IFRC) and Red Crescent Societies has received $ 350,000 from Coca- Cola Foundation to boost COVID- 19 vaccin ation in Bauchi, Bayelsa, Kogi, Ebonyi and Edo states.
This was consequent upon revelation by the Nigerian Red Cross Society ( NRC) that it had created ris k co mmunications and community engagement campaign centres in the five states to accelerate immunisation.
NRC’S Secretar y- General, Abubakar Kende, who spoke in Abuja, at the launch of the programme, with the theme: “Stopthespread of COVID,” observed that pandemic was not yet over.
In her remarks, Coca- Cola’s Director of Public Affairs and Sustainability, Mrs. Amaka
Onyemelukwe, pointed out that the foundation “is an old ally of the Nigerian Red Cross and even funded its fight against the then, newly emerging COVID- 19 pandemic in 2020.”
Onyemelukwe said she looks forward to working with NRC in the future.
Also speaking, Operations Manager for IFRC, Hopewell Munyari, stated: “We are proud as a federation to assist the society in making sure that communities have access to information on the COVID- 19 vaccination campaign.
“Most of the COVID- 19 protocols have been relaxed, but it doesn’t mean that the disease has gone or is not killing again.”
M
EANWHILE, a mathematical modelling study, yesterday, found that vaccines reduced the potential global death toll during
the pandemic by more than half in the y ear following their implementation.
Published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the survey said in the first year of the vaccination programme, 19.8 million out of a potential 31.4 million COVID- 19 deaths were prevent ed worldwide, according to estimates based on excess deaths from 185 countries and territories.
It estimated that a further 599,300 lives could ha ve been sa ved if the W orld Health Organisation’s ( WHO) target of vaccinating 40 per cent of the population in ever y country with two or more doses by the end of 2021 had been met.
Lead author, Dr. Oliver Watson, from Imperial College London, said: “Our findings offer the most complete assessment to date of the remarkable global impact that vaccination has had on the COVID- 19 pandemic. Of the almost 20 million deaths estimated to have been prevented in the first year after vaccines were introduced, almost 7.5 million deaths were prevented in countries covered by the COVID- 19 Vaccine Access initiative ( COVAX). This initiative was set up because it was clear early on that global vaccine equity would be the only way out of the pandemic. Our findings show that making vaccines available to people everywhere, regardless of their wealth, has likely saved millions of lives. However, more could have been done. If the targets set out by the WHO had been achieved, we estimate that roughly one in five of the estimated lives lost due to COVID- 19 in low- income countries could have been prevented.”