The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and
Control (NAFDAC) ha s
approved the use of Pfizer-BionTech COVID-19 vaccines in Nigeria.
The approval of the vaccine was for emergency use only.
In a press briefing with
newsmen at the NAFDAC
office in Lagos, the Director- General of the agency, Mojisola
Adeyeye, she explained that the approval given was not a full one but it would be in effect within the period of getting
people vaccinated and gathering data about the adverse effects following immunization. Adeyeye stated that the vaccine
can be stored between -15oC to – 25oC equivalents to freezer
temperature.
According to her, “We used different mechanisms to approve
the vaccine. We used reliance, meaning that a more mature regulatory agency across the globe, we can use that as a basis for our review.
“They were reviewed carefully
by the NAFDAC staff COVID-
19 vaccine committee to make
sure that the science behind the
development is well understood
and in accordance with our world
regulatory activities. We will get
the assessment report, know the
peculiarity there, then our
COVID-19 committee will get to
do their job.”In March, Nigeria
had received 3.9 million doses of
the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine
and flagged off the vaccination
exercise during an event
organized by the National
P r i m a r y H e a l t h C a r e
D e v e l o p m e n t A g e n c y
(NPHCDA) in Abuja.
According to the NPHCDA, over
one million doses of the vaccine
have so far been administered
across the country in the first phase
of the vaccination programme.
The statistics by the Nigeria Centre
for Disease Control (NCDC)
reflected that over 160,000 Covid-
19 infections and more than 2,000
associated deaths have been
recorded in the country in the last
one year.
To ensure the availability of the
vaccines, the Executive Director of
the NPHCDA, Faisal Shuaib, said
the Nigerian government is
expecting about 29.8 million doses
of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J)
COVID-19 jab.
He said the government signed off
to receive the vaccines through the
African Union (AU), while
vaccine deliveries through the
COVAX facility were expected by
the end of May or early June.