BY DAYO ADESULU
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Gowin Emefiele has pledged to help financing research work with a Nigerian local solution to solving the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
Emefiele who stated this Tuesday said researchers, science institutions and biotechnology firms would benefit from the framework, to develop a Nigerian vaccine for the disease.
According to him, “So far, the CA-COVlD-19 has raised up to N27 Billion to fund these initiatives.”
The CBN governor, therefore, challenged Nigerian scientists at home and abroad to go back to their laboratories and develop a Nigerian vaccine.
He words: “The CBN is developing a framework under which grants and long term facilities will be provided to researchers, science institutions and biotechnology firms to develop the Nigerian Vaccine.
“Once validated by the Health Authorities, the CBN will step in and do the needful for the sake of over 200 million Nigerians now confronted by COVID-19.
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”Our inability to accurately predict the extent to which the coronavirus could spread, and how long it would last, requires that we build sufficient capacity within our health system in order to contain the spread of the virus, state by state, city by city and preserve the lives of vulnerable Nigerians.
“This requires that we all come together to support the ‘work of the Presidential Task Force in its determination to save lives and stem the pandemic.
“Our objective is to improve the capacity of our health system to address emerging public health challenges.”
He lauded the Nigerian private sector, who have come together under the Coalition against COVID-19 (CA -COVID) to support the government, by raising funds to procure needed Isolation Centres, medical equipment.
