COVID-19 Vaccine: Enugu residents express mixed feelings

Some residents of Enugu State have expressed mixed feelings concerning the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination in the state.

Some of them, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday in separate interviews, said that they preferred provision of food, security and other social amenities to the vaccine.

Blessing Eze, a teacher, said she would not take the vaccine on the grounds that it was not what Enugu people needed at the moment.

According to her, people in Enugu need food, good road and security to make life better for them.

“The way they are going about COVID-19 of a thing, one will wonder if there is coronavirus in the state, but as for me, the vaccine is not for me.

“They should give it to politicians and their families, why are they remembering the poor ones now,’’ she said.

Ngozi Okpara said she preferred free vaccination of Typhoid and Malaria to the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Typhoid and malaria kill us more than coronavirus in the country and there is no free vaccine for it.

“As for me, I will enquire from my husband if I should take it or not,’’ she said.

Chukwuemeka Chioke, a trader said, “I heard that the vaccine causes headache and weakens the body, so l would not take it.”

But a nurse, identified as Philomena, said she would take the vaccine since some health workers in the state had died of COVID-19.

“I will take it whenever I am called upon to take the jab. Some doctors and health officers had already taken the jab and nothing has happened to them,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Enugu State, Isaac Onukwube has urged residents in the state to embrace the vaccine.

“It is one who is alive that will think of road and food, I know that they are the basic necessity of life but life is the most important thing,’’ he said.

He urged them to disregard death rumors surrounding COVID- 19 vaccine as the vaccine is real and safe.

NAN reports that Enugu State Government had on Wednesday took delivery of 65,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.