The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) on Friday approved emergency use of Pfizer-BionTech COVID-19 vaccines for use in Nigeria.
Director-General of the agency, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, announced this at the agency’s headquarters in Lagos explaining the vaccine is for emergency use.
The approval is coming a few months after it gave a nod for the use of the Oxford-Astrazeneca jabs.
Earlier in March, Nigeria had received 3.9 million doses of the Astranezeneca jabs and flagged off the vaccination exercise during an event organized by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) in Abuja.
According to her, “I think that is about the best news we’ve heard since,” said medical doctor, Ngong Cyprian, the first person to take the vaccine in Nigeria. “I only wished my dad had had this vaccine, maybe months ago or so. We lost him but we thank God, and the fight is still on and we will win”.
“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 accord with our world regulatory activities.
“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.
“We will get the assessment report, know the peculiarity there, then our COVID-19 committee will get to do their job.”
Since the vaccination campaign began, over 600, 000 persons have taken the jab, as the country records a lower number of infections.
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