By Fola James
The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has set up a N100 billion intervention fund for the production of a home grown vaccine to fight Corona virus in the country, Governor Godwin Emefiele has said.
The amount has brought to total N127 billion so far raised from both the private and public sectors against the novel virus.
The apex bank Governor who spoke at the commissioning of the ThisDay Dome Testing, Treating, Tracing and isolation centre in Abuja on Tuesday, disclosed that the fund will be granted to support researchers and science-based institutions and biotechnology firms to produce a home grown COVID 19 vaccine for the containment of the pandemic.
Emefiele said the Coalition Against COVID-19, (CACOVID), a private sector initiative in the fight against the virus has already raised over N27billion to fund this initiative, but added that the N100 billion will further the production of a vaccine.
He explained that the donation received so far is being used to build well-equipped isolation centres across the 36 states of the federation.
According to him “The ThisDay Dome Testing, Treating, Tracing and Isolation Centre being launched today, represents a part of the support being provided by the CACOVID alliance.
So far, CACOVID has equipped and handed over isolation centres in Rivers, Enugu, Kwara, Ondo and Borno
More isolation centres, Emefiele stated, will be built to expand the treatment of COVID 19 as ‘’It is expected that other isolation centres will be handed over in the other states of the country including FCT, by May 23rd 2020. As part of measures put in place to cushion the effect of the COVID-19, CACOVID has provided food items to poor and Indigents Nigerians.’’
