Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said barely three per cent of Nigeria’s population has been vaccinated against COVID-19 largely due to poor access to the vaccine by developing countries.

Speaking on Sunday, December 5, in Madrid, Spain at the 24th General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Lai
warned that lack of vaccination by developing countries would provide a fertile ground for the virus to mutate and thus threaten the progress already recorded in developed countries.

He said most developed countries had already vaccinated 60 per cent and above of their population, most developing countries were below five per cent.

Mohammed noted that many developed countries had used the advantage of their enormous resources or relationship to sign agreements with manufacturers to supply their countries with vaccines ahead of making them available for use by other countries.

“Even before the clinical trials were completed, millions of doses of the most promising vaccines have been bought by Britain, U S, Japan and the European bloc countries. Some of these countries bought doses five times the size of their population.

“There are fears that these unilateral deals will deprive the poorest countries of access to these life-saving commodities,” he said.