Lack of funds is stalling efforts being made by the being made by the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Ede, Osun State, to develop locally made COVID-19 vaccine.
The centre’s Director, Prof Christian Hapi, confirmed this to The PUNCH in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Hapi, who said the process had started, added that the centre could not proceed to the stage of clinical trials because of lack of funds.
“There are activities for development (of local COVID-19 vaccine). We are at the stage for clinical trials.
“We have not done the clinical trials because we are looking for funds to proceed,” he said.
When asked how much is the will the centre require to proceed to the clinical trial stage, Hapi said, “The amount required for the clinical trial is $189m.”
When further asked if the centre had approached the Federal Government and what the response was, he said, “Yes, we approached the Federal Government and we are still waiting for response.”
The centre’s Deputy Director, Dr Onikepe Folarin, also said, “We are at the point where we want to do clinical trials and we will give the vaccines to a limited number of people. This is to test for safety, but this is still subject to us getting enough funds to be able to proceed.
“We can’t just limit the trials to a limited number of people, so we have been canvassing for funds.”
However, virologist and Chairman, Expert Review Committee on COVID-19, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, said inconsistent government policies and personal interests were some of the reasons why Nigeria is unable to produce human vaccines.
Tomori said Nigeria had no choice than to approve the use of the Janssen Vaccine as the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control did on Tuesday.
Recall that an Indian Institute, Serum Institute of India, which is responsible for the supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the COVAX facility had made known of its plan to suspend vaccine supply due to the rising cases in India.
Tomori said, “The answer I have for you is that do you have a choice? A beggar is hungry but gets a quarter loaf of bread, will he take it or say ‘No, I want a full loaf of bread?’
“The point is that The World Health Organisation says that any vaccine with 50 per cent success rate is good to use with the rising cases we have around.
“Janssen is above 70 per cent, so despite the adverse effects, we don’t really have a choice. We can’t get any more vaccines from India.”
