UN increases COVID-19 vaccine delivery to Nigeria

EU trains 5,000 Yobe youths in vocational skills
Determined to curtail the wave of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and its variants in Nigeria, the United Nations (UN) has moved to accelerate the delivery of vaccine across the country.

According to the UN, accelerating the vaccine delivery is strategic to upscale the present 6.7 per cent vaccine coverage in the country.

UN Global Lead Coordinator of COVID-19 Vaccine Country Readiness and Delivery, Mr. Ted Chaiban, disclosed this, at the weekend, during an inspection of Kano emergency response on COVID-19 and vaccines cold store facilities.

Significant success is being attained in the area of COVID-19 vaccine supply, especially to developing countries, he said, maintaining that getting the jab across to the population is still a daunting task.

Earlier, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, who received the UN delegation in Government House, Kano, requested the establishment of a vaccine hub in the state to meet the needs of the large population.

Narrating how the state government successfully curtailed the spread of the virus in the state, he hinted that the state attained 21 per cent vaccine coverage in the last two months, a development he attributed to intensified community mobilisation.

The UN delegate, who agreed that setting up cold hub in Kano would strengthen COVID-19 vaccination, assured the government of plans to establish such hub in Kano.

MEANWHILE, the European Union (EU), in partnership with Building Resilience in Complex Crisis (BRICC), has trained 5,000 youths in different skills and trades in Yobe State.

The skills are to enable youths have access to basic entrepreneurship training to restore lost means of livelihood in communities.

Programme Manager of BRICC, Freeman Muleya, at the weekend, in Damaturu, disclosed that the skills included basic literacy, numeracy and small-scale businesses.

Others comprise aluminum work, glass fabrication, automobile repairs, bag and shoe making, salon business, bicycle repairs and maintenance, The Guardian gathered.

He added that the youths were also engaged in cap and furniture making, blacksmithing, groundnut processing, knitting and phone repairs.

“The various livelihood interventions are to overcome the underlying challenges of unemployment, recruitment and indoctrination of youths into violent extremism,” he said.

The EU-funded programme, he added, was to support the Ministry of Women Affairs, the National Directorate for Employment (NDE) and others with equipment and take-off grants.

The state coordinator, John Kwaji, said that BRICC services would significantly reduce poverty and unemployment among graduates.