Nigeria Lacks Facility for Clinical Trial of Covid-19 Vaccines – Tomori

PATIENCE IVIE IHEJIRIKA, Abuja

Chairman, Ministerial Expert Advisory Committee on COVID-19, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, has said that Nigeria cannot carry out a clinical trial on COVID-19 vaccine.

Tomori stated this yesterday during a webinar organised by the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) to sensitise media gatekeepers on COVID-19 vaccine introduction.

According to him, vaccines acquired and administered in the country over the years do not undergo further trials.

“We can’t test the vaccines when we don’t have the facilities. It is our fault that we did not participate in any of the clinical trials. NAFDAC has told us clearly that there are no clinical trials, we don’t have vaccine clinical labs,” he said.

Tomori who raised concerns over the few numbers of vaccines (100,000) coming into the country through the COVAX facility arrangement, urged the federal government to learn from other countries by taking proactive steps to purchase the vaccines and on time.

He also stressed the need for the country to increase the number of laboratories and COVID-19 testing in order to save the country from further disaster.

“We are not doing enough testing because we do not have enough labs, sixty years of independence and we are just building labs, the labs we have are not been efficiently used.

“Our government needs to be more proactive and start looking towards purchasing vaccines as other countries are doing, they should take proper action, negotiate in a short period to save our country. Let us hasten the situation for the sake of all of us,” he urged.

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