President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Abuja received his third booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in the Presidential Villa as the country enters the fourth wave of the pandemic.
The president had taken his first jab of the vaccine on March 6 and the second jab on May 29, 2021.
The third vaccine was administered to the president on Tuesday by his personal physician, Dr Suhayb Rafindadi.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after the president took the jab, the Executive Secretary, Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, said the president had again demonstrated leadership by taking the booster jab.
Shuaib reassured citizens that “the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and available for those wishing to benefit from it for their own safety.
“The significance of the shot this morning is that the father of the nation is leading by example. As usual, he is among the first people that have taken the booster dose of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine.
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“Again, to show, clearly, to all Nigerians that it is safe, it is efficacious, and now that over eight million Nigerians have been vaccinated, here is another proof that this vaccine is safe and a clarion call to Nigerians to make themselves available to get the vaccine.“
Shuaib called on all those refusing to take the vaccine to shelve aside all conspiracy theories, as the vaccine was not harmful to humans.
He added that “the evidence is there; over eight million Nigerians have taken the vaccines safely. They are well, they are going about their normal businesses.
“What the president has done today is again to indicate to all Nigerians that Federal Government does everything to make sure that only safe and efficacious vaccines are brought into Nigeria, and that when they are brought into Nigeria, we’ll double check to make sure that it fits the very high standards.
“So, when you go to any health facility, when you go to any mass vaccination site, one thing that should be clear in your mind is that this vaccine that is going into your body is safe and is going to protect you against severe forms of COVID-19.
“That is the assurance that we’re giving Nigerians.”
According to him, the vaccine comes with mild signs that confirm that the vaccine is working well, as it triggers the immune system of everybody that takes it.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had announced that the country is now in a fourth COVID-19 wave.
