Kelvin Bowoto
The federal government has announced steps to ensure local vaccine manufacturing and dramatically reduce dependency on pharmaceutical product imports.
Dr. Tunji Alausa, Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, stated this yesterday in Abuja at a stakeholders’ dialogue with the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation (APTF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to address technological gaps in Nigeria’s pharmaceutical and vaccine sectors.
The debate aims to synthesize thoughts and provide answers for strong and contextual methods that will accelerate technology transfer for local medicine and vaccine manufacture.
This approach, according to the minister, would create a strong platform for leveraging local ability to satisfy the population’s health care demands while also stimulating local research and development operations for medicines and other healthcare commodities.
“Nigeria, like many other African countries, was affected by its inability to manufacture vaccines locally; in light of this, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Pate Ali, went on to develop a vaccine policy in order to be proactive in achieving sustainable local vaccine manufacturing.
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“This policy-making phase was developed in collaboration with crucial actors in the healthcare arena and will be an appropriate response to the lack of access that Nigeria and other similarly disadvantaged nations experienced during the two vaccinations. Dr. Alausa indicated that pressure analysis likely changed the landscape during the COVID-19 epidemic.
He stated, “With the efforts taken thus far, I am convinced that the government’s prioritization of vaccine production will begin to yield the intended results within the shortest feasible time. The reliance on medicinal product imports will be considerably reduced.”
Dr. Obi Adigwe, director-general of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), stated that the institute plans to lead the charge in coordinating science and policy support for the industry in order to establish at least three local vaccine manufacturing entities in the country within the next three to five years.
He expressed confidence that the policy echo system will enable them to meet the goals of three manufacturing entities in half the time.
“Three corporations have expressed interest and have communicated with their CEOs and chairs. As the case may be, and given the integrity of these individuals, I am confident that those three firms will be able to manufacture vaccines within the next 24-36 months.
“So, it is for us to enhance our activities to be sure that their support is contextual and enables them to reach that target,” he went on to say.
Techrectory with Agency Report.
