“What I want to put across is that the military is not involved in any vaccination.”
The Nigerian Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole,who made this confirmation in reaction to the rumour making the round that the military officers are injecting Monkeypox in the people of the Southeast and Southsouth to eliminate them, said: “it is important to use this opportunity to dispel the rumour circulating in the country that the military is vaccinating people and trying to spread monkeypox across the country.
“The military is not involved in any vaccination exercise and I must also really educate the Nigeria people about how vaccination campaigns are done.
“Federal government will take the lead, but we do not conduct campaign without working with states. So, there is no way we will do campaign without working with the state governments, and it is the state governments that will be in front while we provide support.” Professor Adewole, who answered reporters’ questions at the Presidential Villa, Abuja today, Wednesday, said that as at today, the federal government is doing vaccination campaign in three states.
“We are doing vaccination campaign against yellow fever in Kwara and Kogi because of yellow fever outbreak in some parts of the country. We are also doing cholera vaccination in Born state and so anybody carrying the rumour, please help us educate Nigerians that it is not true.
“We are not vaccinating anybody. We plan to do missiles campaign very soon and we will also do yellow fever before the end of the year and we will let you know.
“You will never find Federal government staff conducting vaccination campaign without the support and active participation of the state ministry of health; this is just to correct the misconception.”
On whether his ministry is disowning the military that is carrying on medical programme in some parts of the country, the minister said that the military as part of a campaign of winning over the heart and soul of the people will get engaged in several things.
According to him, in the past, the military was noted for even constructing roads, and carrying out other outreaches, including measuring blood pressure and talking to people.
“These are normal things. We had to request for the assistance of the military in Borno state to reach inaccessible areas with respect to the polio campaign, so we have worked with the military in the past and we will continue to work with them.
“There are doctors in the military; there are nurses and when you go abroad, some of the best institutions are those ones managed by the military. So we cannot disown the military.” [myad]
