Prezzo Shed Investment Limited has commenced a nationwide retraining programme for about 200 technicians responsible for the installation, maintenance and servicing of vaccine cold-chain equipment across Nigeria.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dr. Emmanuel Njoku, said the training was designed to strengthen the capacity of technicians, expose them to emerging technologies and ensure the integrity of vaccines and other medical commodities across the country.
Njoku, who spoke during the training programme in Abuja yesterday, said the company regularly retrains its technicians because of the dynamic nature of technology and the critical role of cold-chain systems in the healthcare sector.
He said, “The purpose of this training is to retrain our technicians across the country because our company is involved in cold-chain maintenance and installation across the country.
“From time to time, we bring our technicians together to train them. Sometimes we do it nationally, while at other times we localise the training to the states.”
According to him, the programme is also aimed at documenting all technicians working with the company, injecting new energy into the team and updating their knowledge of new developments in cold-chain technology.
He further noted the company had developed a range of new products and would use the occasion to launch new vaccine cold-chain equipment, adding that technicians would be trained on how to properly install, manage and deploy the new equipment.
Njoku described Prezzo Shed as a proactive organisation that seeks to remain ahead of developments in the industry rather than merely responding to emerging challenges.
He disclosed that about 200 old and new technicians had been invited to the training from across the 36 states and the 774 local government areas.
He stressing that company currently maintains more than 30,000 pieces of cold-chain equipment across the country, stressing that the technicians perform a critical role in maintaining vaccine integrity and protecting the health of Nigerian children.
Njoku, however, identified insecurity, poor roads, logistics and the difficulty of travelling to remote communities as some of the major challenges confronting cold-chain maintenance operations.
He said technicians often had to travel to primary healthcare facilities in villages and other hard-to-reach locations where vaccine cold-chain equipment is installed.
