By Olasunkanmi Akoni

Members of the Lagos State House of Assembly, yesterday, commenced the process to recall the Coronavirus Pandemic Bill 2020 in order to control and regulate the administration of COVID-19 drugs and vaccines in the state.

Recall that the bill was passed on March 26, 2020, to afford Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu the legislative concurrence to expend money required to effectively contain the virus and enforce compliance by residents.

Hakeem Sokunle, Acting Chairman Committee on Health of the house, brought to the notice of the House the rate at which some private companies, organisations and individuals are currently hoarding to bring in COVID-19 vaccines and the rate at which people are administering COVID-19 drugs without doctor’s prescriptions.

According to Sokunle, there was the need to call on Governor Sanwo-Olu to avail the House to revisit the Coronavirus bill holistically so that it will enable the state to operate maximally.

“There is no problem if private companies want to bring in the vaccines but they should have it at the back of their mind that no individuals should be allowed to administer the vaccines to any individual because it could be dangerous as it will be very wrong for us to allow this to happen by administering the wrong or fake vaccines,” he added.

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Also, Gbolahan Yishawu, who also lent his voice stated that there are protocols that every government of a country has put in place for the occasion of the COVID-19 vaccines that are being administered to the people all over the world because those vaccines have conditions in which they must be preserved to ensure that the vaccines when they are being administered are still potent enough to curb the virus.

“In Lagos, there has to be control and protocols by which these vaccines are going to be administered to people and the best way to do this is by the Law. We have a law passed by this House; I will suggest that we recall the bill so that we can add issues like this into it to ensure that the administration of these vaccines is taken care of. Also, it will give us the opportunity to appropriately fund our government to be able to bring in these vaccines.”

Contributing, Temitope Adewale noted COVID-19 is still ravaging and people are self-medicating by using drugs that are not certified by the government at various pharmacies as covid-19 drugs without actually knowing the dosage to use.

“We are approaching where there will be more grievous damages to the health and vital organs of the body due to administering unverified drugs to the body. So, we need to regulate the use of these drugs and medicines by recalling the bill so that we can look into it again in order to tie the loose ends and regulate the use of these vaccines and drugs.

Ajani Owolabi said, “We know the virus has many variants now, as at today South Africa has stopped the use of AstraZeneca vaccine because it only has a 23 per cent efficacy as opposed to others that have up to 93-97 per cent efficacy. So we must ensure that whatsoever vaccine they are bringing in must have the efficacy to curtail the virus. We also know that the government has a track and trace policy in which they check who has the virus and who they have been in contact with, this must continue when it comes to the administration of the vaccines.”

The Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, thereafter, directed the Acting Chairman House Committee on Health to call on the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice to have a discussion over what their reservations are all about and get back to the House on Thursday.

Vanguard News Nigeria