UK PM Johnson Meets Nigerian Pastor, Others Over Covid Vaccination

British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, this week, met with London-based Nigerian pastor, Sola Fola-Alade, and other community leaders at the Tab London, Lewisham.

“Hi folks, I’m here at The Tab. I’ve been talking to some pastors about the amazing works that they do to encourage the take up of vaccinations,” Johnson said in a video posted on his official Twitter handle on Saturday.

Fola-Alade, a trained medical doctor, is one of the Lead Pastors at the Liberty Church, London.

Speaking at the meeting with Johnson, Fola-Alade said, “Not only am I a pastor of a church but I’m also a medical doctor by training. I do understand people’s fears and anxieties concerning the speed and the development of the vaccines and the things that are out there concerning how the vaccines were developed.”

He encouraged those who have already taken the vaccines to tell others to do so to curb coronavirus-associated deaths.

With over 113 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including more than 2.5 million associated deaths recorded globally, the need for mass vaccination cannot be overemphasised.

Britain began its vaccination programme last December after it approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the pandemic, which has killed more than 122,415 people out of the over four million infected people in the UK, according to the World Health Organisation.

Johnson, who spent days in intensive care with Covid-19 last year, called the vaccination programme a “huge step forward in the UK’s fight against coronavirus”.