The Lagos State Government has revealed the cost of the COVID-19 vaccine at private hospitals.
On Sunday, the Lagos State Government said the COVID-19 vaccine cost a minimum of N6,000 at a private facility.
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The Lagos State Commissioner for Health Prof Akin Abayomi said in a statement.
Abayomi said the cost would cover the facilitation and administration of the vaccines. This includes:
i. Logistics.
ii. Personnel.
iii. Quality oversight.
iv. Administrative cost.
v. Overhead cost.
He said that these costs would be proportionally distributed for the doses administered to people.
His word, “The public-private partnership is similar to the strategy we deployed for escalating our COVID-19 testing.
“This resulted in a dramatic increase in testing done in Lagos from an average of 200 a day to over 2,000 a day culminating in a total of 800,000 tests. In less than a year and Lagos State accounting for more than 30 per cent alone of all COVID-19 PCR tests done in Nigeria. This demonstrates the power of public-private partnerships, with the inclusion of the significant capacity of the private sector but the government retaining strict regulatory oversight and quality function.
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“With this approach, we intend to ramp up our vaccination strategy using the existing public facilities as well as the inclusion of some private facilities. It is imperative to emphasise that the vaccines administered in public facilities is free and would remain free to the public as they were contributed to us by the Federal Government and our donor partners, those wishing to receive the vaccines can go to any of the designated 206 government facilities and receive their dose free of charge.
“However, those that wish to receive the vaccines within the comforts of a private facility can do so at a minimal administrative cost of N6,000 for two doses which cover the cost that the private sector will incur to facilitate the administration of the vaccine which includes logistics, personnel, quality oversight, administrative and overhead costs. The cost will be proportionally lower for a single dose or those wishing to take a single booster dose.”
Abayomi clarified that no one is “forced” to receive vaccines at the private hospital.
“The vaccines in both are of the same quality and brand.”
Also, read the latest health news on COVID-19 vaccine
He said the Government has invested in public facilities.
“We have also invested in the training of our public personnel so that the customer experience in our public facilities would be matched equally with that of the private sector,” he continued.
The Commissioner explained the inclusion of private sector was to include private health facilities and corporate institutions as additional sites for the COVID-19 vaccination administration.
Source: PUNCH HealthWise
