40 Community Pharmacists, Private Hospitals Accredited For Covid-19 Vaccination In C’River
2 min read
Godwin AJOM, Calabar
About 40 community pharmacists and private hospitals have been accredited for Covid19 Vaccination in Cross River state, as at December, 2022.
The involvement of the private facilities is in line with the federal government’s policy on COVID Vaccination, with backing from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to beat the target of health immunity which is getting up to 70 per cent of the state’s population, protected from the disease, via vaccination.
With this development, individuals can walk into any accredited private health facility and get their COVID-19 jabs.
Addressing Newsmen at the flag-off in Calabar, Director General Cross River state Primary Health Care development Agency, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong, explained said “if we (Cross River) must meet our target of health immunity, we must improve on our services. We are committed to implement whatever health policy that will make sure every citizen gets health services of quality.
“We just flagged off the COVID vaccination in private facilities. Right now, I know we have limited number of accredited facilities, but we intend to cover more as we train them, we accredit the pharmacists, or health facility. But most importantly, we must train them first before accreditation. We will be sharing the list of accredited pharmacies and health facilities with the public, as we keep accrediting and training them,” Ekpenyong assured.
Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, Dr Kanu Aya, Chairman of Association of Private medical practitioners Cross River State said “only private medical practitioners who are registered and have the capacity to do this exercise that will be accredited. So many have registered but we are going to have up to 40 facilities participating in the program, only in Private facilities.”
Meanwhile, World Health Organization’s Director, Salisu Ibrahim, supported the program, but recounted that “we are yet to record any deaths associated with the Covid-19 vaccine in Cross River state, so the vaccines are free and safe.”
