The Chairman, MTN Nigeria, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, has urged the public and private sector to unite to defeat COVID-19 in Nigeria.
Ndukwe, in a statement on Tuesday, said the firm had donated $25m towards the African Union’s COVID-19 vaccination programme.
He said Nigeria would receive a significant volume of the seven million doses of the vaccine to be distributed to health workers across the continent.
Ndukwe said the vaccine to be distributed among health workers in the country was the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was developed in partnership with the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. “The threat that COVID-19 represents to Nigeria requires an unprecedented response from the public and the private sector. We must all work together to develop and deliver the solutions that will allow us to contain this threat and protect the most vulnerable in our communities across the country.
“The vaccine works by prompting the immune system to start making antibodies and primes it to attack the virus when injected into a patient. It has been verified to be highly effective as no one given the vaccine at the trial stage developed severe COVID-19 symptoms afterward or required further hospital treatment.
“MTN’s partnership with the AU is in furtherance of the Y’ello Hope package unveiled in 2020. The donation will strengthen the fight against COVID-19 in Nigeria by ensuring that frontline workers are well catered for and protected.”