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Nigeria Designated as COVID-19 Vaccine Manufacturing Base
By Joyce Babayeju
President Muhammadu Buhari has welcomed the designation of Nigeria as one of the six countries in Africa designated as manufacturing bases for the COVID-19 vaccine, while also calling for collaboration to address the effects of the pandemic.
With the addition of Nigeria to the four countries earlier approved for the vaccine production on the continent, efforts by the Buhari administration to change the selection that the country considered unrepresentative of the needs, capabilities and population distribution in Africa has thus yielded the desired result.
In his contribution to the ROUNDTABLE ON HEALTH SYSTEMS AND VACCINE PRODUCTION at the ongoing 6th Europe-Africa Summit, President Buhari said:
“I am delighted to receive the news of the selection of Nigeria among recipients of MRNA Vaccine technology transfer. We shall ensure the best use is made of the opportunity. Nigeria also offers to host the Bio-manufacturing Training hub proposed by World Health Organization (WHO). We commit to providing support to make the hub functional in the shortest possible time.
“Accordingly we are prioritizing the manufacture of vaccines on the African continent and in the sharing and transfer of technology and intellectual property rights. We call on the EU to support the WTO towards the conclusion of negotiations on intellectual property rights’ waiver to ensure that the manufacturing of vaccines can start early in Africa.”
While commending the efforts of the foreign partners in making the Covid-19 vaccine available, he urged them to do more as less than 10 percent of the African population had gotten the jab, stressing that this situation could negatively affect Africa’s developmental projections.
“We commend the efforts and support of Team Europe for the substantial contribution to the COVAX facility and the EU contribution for Vaccination rollout campaign in Africa. But currently, less than 10% of Africa’s population has been vaccinated, compared to more than 60% total vaccinations in the EU, as at the end of 2021.
“Regrettably, millions of African citizens are yet to receive their first dose of vaccination jabs, while their counterparts in Europe and other parts of the world are bracing up for their third booster shots. When eventually, Africa received about 700 million doses of vaccines before the end of 2021 under the COVAX Facility, it represented a considerable shortfall for a population of 1.383 billion.
“Nigeria strongly believes that these low figures could not only cause a future health crisis, but could negatively impact economic growth and our ability to achieve the African Union Agenda 2063,” the President said.
The Nigerian leader called for a closer collaboration with the EU to tackle the effects of the pandemic on the African continent.
“The severe impact of the pandemic has once again brought to the fore the vulnerabilities of mankind and the weakness of health systems across the world. To mitigate future devastating health pandemics, there is an urgent need for increased funding for healthcare systems in Africa and increased local manufacturing of materials and equipment along the whole value chain. This can happen only with the cooperation that would close the gaps in the health systems on our continent.
“We urge our European partners to focus more on investments targeted at improving the African health systems and production of vaccines. Existing AU frameworks like the New Partnership for African Development and national comparative advantages of some African countries are there to form the basis for such investments,” he added.
February 19, 2022
FG Warns Against Vaccine Hoarding, Flag Off Phase 2 of COVID-19 Vaccination
The federal government has warned against the hoarding of the COVID-19 vaccines, amidst the rising cases of the pandemic in the country.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman, Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, gave the warning on Monday in Abuja at the National Flag-off of Phase 2 COVID-19 Vaccination held at Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, Abuja.
According to him, Monday’s exercise is another phase of the government’s Four-Phased Strategic Vaccine Roll-Out Plan.
He also commended all Nigerians, especially those who have received their full two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine during the first phase which closed in July.
“As you are aware, the third wave with the Delta variant of the virus is here with us. This has resulted in the upsurge of COVID-19 cases in the last few weeks.
“The arrival of the 4,000,080 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine donated by the Government of the United States and the 177,600 doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccines out of the 29,850,000 doses the Federal Government has purchased through the Africa-Import-Export Bank and the African Union, is highly encouraging and motivating for us at the PSC,” Mustapha said.
He, however, assured that the federal government is committed to ensuring that Nigerians have unfettered access to COVID-19 vaccines as the country will continue to invest in and access safe and effective vaccines.
“It is now the responsibility of every citizen to register and get vaccinated so that we can achieve our desired herd immunity of vaccinating at least 70 per cent of our eligible population,” Mustapha added.
He pledged that the PSC would continue to monitor with concern the increasing trend of COVID-19 cases in several countries with a special focus on those with high incidence rates and widespread prevalence of variants of concern.
He said that while government deeply empathizes with families who have lost loved ones to this virus and assured them that government would continue to do everything possible to minimize the surge of COVID-19 cases in Nigeria,
He said: “Consequently, restrictions are placed on travellers from Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey into Nigeria in line with our travel guidelines. Individuals, transporters, and airlines who flout the guidelines shall be sanctioned.
“State governments are required to ensure all returning travellers from all countries adhere to the mandatory seven-day self-isolation period and the repeat of COVID-19 PCR test on the seventh day after arrival. Violators will also be sanctioned accordingly.”
While saying that the onus was on eligible citizens to demand, make the extra effort to access the vaccines, and get vaccinated, Mustapha assured that the vaccines are safe and efficacious.
“And it is our only hope out of this pandemic for now,” he added.
August 16, 2021
Patent Waiver Not Enough to Close Vaccine Gap – Okonjo-Iweala
World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said that intellectual property waiver alone will not be enough to narrow the huge COVID-19 vaccine supply gap between rich and poor countries.
She told the European Parliament that it was clear that discussions around vaccine patents alone would not suffice, saying that global leaders should do more to ensure that there is equitable production and distribution of the jabs.
Okonjo-Iweala said developing countries had complained that the licensing process was cumbersome and should be improved upon.
She added that while it makes sense to protect research and innovation, it is also important to expand access to the vaccines.
According to her, manufacturers should work to expand production, pointing to idle capacity in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Senegal, and South Africa among other developing nations.
She said: “I am convinced that we can agree on a text that gives developing countries that kind of access and flexibility, whilst protecting research and innovation.
“To have solved the unacceptable problem of inequity of access to vaccines, we have to be holistic. It’s not one or the other.”
Okonjo-Iweala stressed the importance of diversifying vaccine manufacturing and to have more production taking place in Africa and Latin America to contain the pandemic.
She told the EU legislators that normal market forces for exports and imports couldn’t apply when it comes to the life-or-death issue of COVID-19 vaccines, as many of the world’s wealthiest nations are hoarding the shots for their own population when the crisis hits their home turf.
She said although the world could manufacture some five billion vaccine doses overall, it now requires twice or three times that capacity due to the spread of the contagion.
“One of the main challenges is diversifying vaccine production, which is now 80 per cent concentrated in 10 European, North American and South Asian nations, Okonjo-Iweala said, calling the situation a problem that “has come home to roost.”
She added: “It’s not normal that Africa, with 1.3 billion people, has 0.17 per cent of the manufacturing capacity of the world. So this has to change.”
EU nations have criticised a call by the United States to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents as a way to increase supplies, saying that the move would yield no short-term or intermediate improvement and could even have a negative impact.
However, Okonjo-Iweala sought to remain neutral on the issue, saying that WTO members could find the flexibility to make sure more vaccines are produced in developing nations.
South Africa and India have urged fellow WTO members to waive intellectual property rights on vaccines to boost production.
Poorer countries that make up half the world’s population have received just 17 per cent of doses, a situation the World Health Organisation (WHO) has labelled “vaccine apartheid”.
The EU outlined a plan on Wednesday it sees as a more effective way of boosting output, using existing WTO rules, rather than a waiver, noting that countries can grant licences to manufacturers to produce with or without the patent holder’s consent.
In March, Nigeria received nearly four million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), from Mumbai through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to the vaccines.
The doses have now been largely exhausted even as India, a major contributor to the COVAX facility, battles to curb the growing number of infections and deaths in the Asian country.
May 21, 2021
BioNTech Starts Vaccine Production At New German Site
German Covid-19 vaccine maker BioNTech said Wednesday it has started production at its new facility in Marburg, expected to significantly boost the EU’s vaccine supply.
“We have started the first step of vaccine production in our production facility in Marburg,” the company said in a statement.
The factory, whose launch was fast-tracked by German authorities, will produce mRNA, the active ingredient in BioNTech’s vaccine developed with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
It will then be purified and concentrated before being transported to a “production partner” to be finished.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will carry out quality checks in February or March.
“The first vaccines produced at the Marburg site are expected to be delivered at the beginning of April,” BioNTech said.
The main European factory for producing the vaccine is Pfizer’s plant in Puurs, Belgium.
Once fully operational, the new Marburg site in Hesse state will be one of the largest mRNA production facilities in Europe, with an annual production capacity of up to 750 million vaccine doses.
BioNTech plans to produce up to 250 million doses there in the first half of 2021.
“We continue to work with Pfizer on a series of measures to meet global demand,” said the company, confirming its goal of delivering two billion doses in 2021.
BioNTech bought the Marburg plant from Swiss pharma giant Novartis last year to ramp up vaccine production, and retained the 300 employees already working there.
BioNTech had announced in mid-January that it would have to delay shipments of the jabs to the EU due to necessary modifications at the Puurs factory, sparking ire across the bloc.
But the company said in early February it would meet its contractual commitments for the first quarter and pledged to send up to 75 million extra doses to the bloc in the spring.
The EU has ordered a total of 600 million doses of BioNTech and Pfizer’s so-called Comirnaty vaccine.
February 10, 2021
COVID-19 vaccine is safe, it can’t kill says PTF
Chairman of Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 pandemic and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Mr. Boss Mustapha has debunked insinuations that the vaccine for the virus was developed to kill Africans.
Mustapha spoke on Tuesday at the inauguration of the State House Clinic Special Care Centre (COVID-19 Isolation Centre), Abuja.
Dismissing the conspiracy theories concerning the vaccines, Mustapha said: ‘‘I don’t believe anyone will spend billions of dollars in manufacturing vaccines to kill us in Africa.’’
According to a statement issued by Deputy Director of Information in the State House, Attah Esa, the SGF spoke on the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines to be procured for Nigeria.
He added that the Federal Government would keep encouraging Nigerians to get vaccinated when the time comes, because ‘‘the vaccines are safe, effective and for our benefit”.
“We will appeal and explain to our people that if you do not take the vaccine, the danger of falling terribly sick and eventually dying is there.
‘‘We will be blunt to them that if you don’t take the COVID-19 vaccine, you may not be able to go anywhere in the world very soon. Even when you want to go and perform your spiritual obligation, that will be subjected to your COVID-19 status,” he said.
On the new facility being inaugurated, Mustapha hinted that a testing laboratory for the virus would soon be established at the State House Clinic.
He said the Buhari-led administration was using the challenges posed by the pandemic as an opportunity to change Nigeria’s health infrastructure.
February 3, 2021
Covid-19 patient dies hours after Vaccination
A California resident who tested positive for COVID-19 in late December died several hours after receiving a shot of the vaccine.
The individual, who has not been named, reportedly died in Placer County, in the greater Sacramento area, on Thursday.
The death was announced by the Placer County Sheriff’s Office in a Facebook post, with the department adding that the incident remains under investigation.
‘The individual was administered a COVID-19 vaccine several hours before their death on January 21, 2021,’ the agency wrote. ‘The vaccine was not administered by Placer County Public Health.’
It’s unclear if the person was given the Moderna of Pfizer vaccine.
‘There are multiple local, state, and federal agencies actively investigating this case; any reports surrounding the cause of death are premature, pending the outcome of the investigation. Our thoughts are with the family of the deceased,’ the sheriff’s office continued.
Officials with the Placer County Coroner’s Office have confirmed they would be conducting an autopsy on Monday to determine the person’s specific cause of death.
In a statement, the California Department of Health said: ‘Our thoughts are with the family of the deceased. We take these instances seriously which is why we are working with our government partners to investigate the cause.
‘We are working collaboratively and will continue to use data and science to determine how to proceed.’
This comes a week after California State Epidemiologist Dr. Erica S. Pan recommended that providers halt the administration of one batch of the Moderna vaccine ‘out of an extreme abundance of caution’ after it caused an allergic reaction in less than ten people.
‘While no vaccine or medical procedure is without risk, the risk of a serious adverse reaction is very small,’ the California Department of Health wrote.
‘While less data exists on adverse reactions related to the Moderna vaccine, a similar vaccine shows that the expected rate of anaphylaxis is approximately 1 in 100,000.’
January 25, 2021
COVID-19: Sanwo-Olu speaks on vaccinating 20 to 22 million Lagos residents
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, has said there is no need to vaccinate 20 to 22 million residents of the state against COVID-19.
Sanwo-Olu disclosed this while featuring on Channels Television programme, Sunday Politics.
The governor also disclosed that his administration was engaging some companies in the production of COVID-19 vaccines for residents of the state.
He said: “It is important for me to make this. We don’t have to vaccinate the 20 or 22 million population that we have. The plan is to ensure that there is a herd immunity and that typically speaks about 50 to 60 percent of your population, that is the kind of target that you really meet.
“We have started a conversation with some of the vaccine manufacturers. Pfizer for example, I have made contact with them, Johnson and Johnson are not out yet, the Moderna have written to us and we have written back to them.”
January 25, 2021
FG to import first 100,000 doses of COVID- 19 vaccine by January- NPHCDA
By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
As a way of slowing down and interrupting the transmission of the COVID-19 outbreak across the country the Federal Government is set to import the first consignment of 100,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine into the country by the end of January, 2021.
This was disclosed at a virtual meeting organized by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, with the media yesterday.
Chairman of the Technical Working Group for the COVID-19 vaccine and Director of Disease Control and Immunization at NPHCDA, Dr Bassey Okposen disclosed that the 100,000 doses of the BioN Tech- Pfizer COVID19 will arrive the country by the end of January and would commence the first set of vaccination of Nigerians by March, 2021
Okposen said, the COVAX vaccine, which is preferred by Nigerian Government would be introduced into the country by NPHCDA in four phases due to available quantity.
He explained that the vaccine use is going to be prioritized in the order of health workers, the elderly, people with co- morbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension and so on.
In 2021, 84,655 people to be vaccinated and in 2022 an additional 65 million Nigerians to be immunized.
According to him, government is targeting 50,000 health workers during the first phase of immunization, adding that each person is required be administered two doses and the second dose will be administered 21 days after the first dose.
He said that the country is working very hard to ensure that the vaccines and will undergo the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pre-qualification and NAFDAC certification before they can be used.
There would be accountability in the use of the vaccines which have 95% efficacy and it will be give free of charge.
Health workers will be properly trained on how to administer the vaccine.
We need to let our people know that the Nigerian government will not do anything that is harmful to Nigerians and appealed to Nigerians not to reject the vaccines when they arrive into the country.
Speaking on the caseloads of infections recorded so far in the country, Professor Oyewale Tomori, an Epideomoligist said that the real number is way above those tested in the country, adding that the number announced is a tip of the iceberg.
Observing protocols is to stop the virus from spreading, the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria is very serious, Tomori noted.
January 9, 2021
Nurse contracts Covid-19 few days after vaccination
An ER Nurse in California has tested positive for COVID-19 just days after he got vaccinated against the virus.
Mathew W. got vaccinated on December 18 and immediately took to Instagram where he shared a picture of the certificate he got after taking the vaccine.
“Got my Covid vaccine! The 15 minutes afterward sitting around with a bunch of others while health care workers asked us how we felt made me think of an opium den. I’ll report back if I start to grow a third arm,” he captioned the picture.
Days later, on Christmas eve, Mathew became sick with muscle aches, chills and fatigue after he had worked a shift at a COVID-19 unit after the vaccination.
He went for a test for COVID-19 on December 26 and the result came back positive, Daily Mail reports.
Dr Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centers of San Diego, said such is not unexpected at all.
“We know from the vaccine clinical trials that it’s going to take about 10 to 14 days for you to start to develop protection from the vaccine,” Ramers said.
“That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50%, and you need that second dose to get up to 95 per cent.”
He advised those who have been vaccinated to continue to follow protection protocols against the virus without letting their guard down.
“You hear heath practitioners being very optimistic about it being the beginning of the end, but it’s going to be a slow roll, weeks to months as we roll out the vaccine,” the specialist said.
December 30, 2020
Coronavirus vaccine may be ready for public in November – China announces
China has announced that a Coronavirus vaccine may be ready for use by the general public as early as November, 2020.
Vaccine makers all over the world are racing to develop an effective vaccine against the virus which has already killed more than 925,000 people.
China already has four COVID-19 vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials and have given three of those drugs to essential workers under an emergency use programme inaugurated in July.
Guizhen Wu, a top official of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said the coronavirus vaccines being developed in China may be ready for use by the general public as the phase three clinical trials were going as planned.
Wu, in an interview with state TV, revealed she also contracted Coronavirus but she has experienced no abnormal symptoms in recent months after taking an experimental vaccine herself in April.
A unit of state pharmaceutical giant, China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and U.S.-listed Sinovac Biotech are developing the three vaccines under the state’s emergency use programme.
There are currently nine vaccine candidates in late-stage human trials, although some have hit recent obstacles, AstraZeneca and Oxford University momentarily paused clinical trials last week after a volunteer developed an unexplained illness.
September 16, 2020