By Williams Anuku, Abuja
Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha on Thursday decried growing complacency among Nigerians with regards to prevention against coronavirus.
He also said there has been undue politicization of the pandemic including a reduction in intervention funds.
According to the PTF Chairman, the phenomenon is not limited to Nigeria but other parts of the world, which the global infections rate has been put at over 25 million (25,917,000 as at 02/09/2020).
He noted that since the virus hit the 15 million mark, it has been increasing by 1 million cases every 3-4 days, stressing that the countries that top the global disease burden include: United States (6,257,9380, Brazil (3,952,790), India (3,769,523) and Russia (1,005,000).
“Global challenges impacting the fight against the pandemic have been identified to include the following, general complacency setting-in among the populace; with non adherence to NPIs; politicization of the pandemic; and limited funding across many countries for the response needs, “he stated.
On the development of vaccine for the virus, Boss explained that the global community has made appreciable progress, stating that as at 28 August 2020, a total of 173 candidate vaccines were under evaluation.
He said 33 candidate vaccines are under clinical evaluation (8 are in phase 3 trials) while 143 candidate vaccines are in pre-clinical evaluation.
He assured that the PTF will continue to monitor developments so that the country can benefit from the emergence of an effective vaccine.