Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State has urged Nigerians to stop having doubts about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Okowa fielded questions from State House correspondents after a private meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently warned that COVID-19 Delta variant was fast spreading around the world.
Okowa said that the vaccines had been proven to be harmless with no reported case of death in Nigeria.
According to him, out of 3.94 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine distributed in Nigeria, Delta State got about 95,000 doses, which he said have been used.
He said: “That has been fully utilised; both in the first and the second dose. Actually, in the country, they have done well.
“As a result of the anti-vaccine campaign, the kind of messages they pass out, a lot of people started having some level of hesitancy, but all of the doses we have in the state were taken up.
“And across the nation, as of the last meeting we had last week Thursday, I chaired the NEC sub-committee interfacing with the Presidential Task Force, we didn’t really lose anything.
“As of that Thursday, one would say, few days for it to expire, we had only nine vials; so that means we are not going to lose anything.
“But we have to up the campaign as we are expecting many more vaccines at the end of July, first week of August; which is going to run into a few more millions; so we just have to keep the campaign going.
“I want to reassure Nigerians that the AstraZeneca vaccine and all other vaccines have been proven very safe; the adverse effect following vaccination actually has been very minimal.
“There’s been no reported death following vaccination; and we have all taken it; our first and second doses, and we are well.”
The governor said that efforts were being made to boost the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state amid dwindling revenue at national and state levels due to COVID-19 pandemic.
He said his administration was trying to get people into the tax bracket while being mindful of the impact of such on the populace.