Nigeria’s COVID-19 Candidate Vaccine Ready in 18 Months

•TETFUND votes N450m for research

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

Nigeria will in the next 18 months join the league of countries that have developed candidate vaccine for the prevention of the COVID-19.

The vaccine which is a product of several research syndication by research institutions in the country was being funded by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TEFFUND) to the tune of N450 million.

Nigeria’s food and drug regulatory agency, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) recently got certification for the attainment of Maturity Level Three Regulatory agency by the World Health Organisation.

NAFDAC said the certification would enable it regulate and help to midwife the local production of vaccines, including the much needed COVID19 vaccines.

The Project Manager of the Nigeria COVID-19 Research Coalition (NCRC), Prof. Popoola Mustapha Ayo, who spoke about the prospect of local production of vaccines at the first research colloquium organised by the 50-member coalition in Abuja, yesterday, said TETFUND was working with five institutions – Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR); National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI); Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto; University of Jos and National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), to develop reagents components locally. 

“We are actually looking at the NIPRD that is going to be used for vaccine protection, TETFund has put in N450 million to support that process and the ultimate thing is to come up with candidate vaccine for Covid-19 in the next 18 months,” he said.

Speaking further on research funding on the health sector, Ayo said the proposition by the African Union was that countries should set aside one per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as contribution for Research and Development.

Ayo said the country’s health sector required not less than $500 million per annum to have concrete research that can be of impact to the economy.

“Our National GDP is $500 billion and one per cent of this is $5 billion. Presently, Nigeria is holding the highest grant portfolio for research and is spending around $20 million on research and development,” he said.

As part of the efforts to ensure more result-oriented research studies, Ayo said the federal government had adopted a triple strategy of interfacing between the government, private sector and the academia in its research development.

“For research and development that has an interface between the government, private sector and the academia and we are actually focusing on the people.

“Before now what we do was to concentrate the funding for research and development only on tertiary education sector but for the first time, we bring together five institutions that are having real times business in terms of development of vaccines generally in the country using the model of Covid-19.

“We have institutions like NlMR, National Vetinary Research Institute (‘NVRI) Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto , University of Jos and NIPRD among others because we are looking at the reagents component of what is needed so that it can be produced locally.

“We are actually looking at the NIPRD that is going to be used for vaccine protection, TETFund has put in N450 million to support that process and the ultimate thing is to come up with candidate vaccine for Covid-19 in the next 18 months,” he said.

 The National Coordinator of NCRC, Dr. Chinwe Lucia Ochu said the research coalition was set up to conduct COVID-19 research and to generate research evidence to aid understanding of COVID-19 and support Nigeria’s response to the current disease outbreak.

A Professor of Epidemiology, Prof. Ehimario Igumbor who spoke on the expectations from the colloquium said so far, over 2000 researches had been carried out on COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

“Two years on, we are continuing to forge ahead in discussion around relevant research on COVID-19 that could inform responses. Today we are convening a colloquium to mark two years of emergence of the NCRC.

“A coalition of purpose, a coalition that is truly seeking to shepherd and ensure great stewardship around all research around COVID-19 in the country,” he said.

The NCRC was established by NCDC and FMoH in collaboration with the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) and key stakeholders to generate research evidence to aid understanding of COVID-19 and support Nigeria’s response to the current outbreak.

The research coalition has a membership of over 50 institutions and provides a national platform for coordinating research on COVID-19 in Nigeria.