Lagos, the state with the highest cases of COVID-19 infections received a consignment of 507,000 doses of Astra Zeneca COVID-19 COVAX vaccines from the federal government on Tuesday, March 9, 2021.

Speaking during the virtual official unveiling of a tertiary health centre in Lekki, Lagos on Thursday, Sanwo-Olu explained the reason why he’s yet to receive the shot of the vaccine.

The governor said he has yet to take doses of the vaccine because of the rule that stated that health workers should take first.

He said, “I just want to follow the rules. The rules are that the health workers at the frontline should first take it.

“So, I am pleading with the Commissioner of Health to be gracious and let me also take. So, they have given me a date, tomorrow (Friday) and I am hoping that they would have started giving it to the health workers.”

As part of efforts to improve healthcare in Lagos, Sanwo-Olu was quoted in a statement as saying that the state government spent billions of naira in 2020 on procurement of health equipment, adding that the equipment is on the way. 

He said, “For us as a government, we have raised our strength on health, especially our capital expenditure on health. We are currently renovating to a world-class, six of our general hospitals.

“We are currently building two new general hospitals. We are building a children hospital. We are building an international research centre. All these are meant to complement what we have currently.

“We will also scale up a tertiary health centre, Lagos State Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). We will be discussing with you in the next coming months what we want to turn LASUTH to. All of these are to make healthcare accessible and affordable.”

Promising to bring down the cost of healthcare, Sanwo-Olu said his administration is trying to stop medical tourism; people travelling several thousand kilometres to go and secure or get health treatment.