TheCable

The federal government says there are at least two vaccine candidates in Nigeria of which production is being hindered by limited resources.

Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, disclosed this during a media briefing at the state house in Abuja on Thursday.

He said the government is forced to look elsewhere to solicit support for the local vaccine whose trials could take a year.

“The question will arise, what about domestic Nigerian-made vaccines? Yes, there are Nigerian researchers who are also in the vaccine space,” Ehanire said.

“We have at least two vaccine candidates in Nigeria but they need a lot of resources to go through the clinical trial phases. So, we are trying to look for the resources to support them in doing that. 

“And until that is done which will take at least a year, we are not yet directly going to be in that game.”

He added that the federal government is also considering partnership with other vaccine companies to have their vaccines produced in Nigeria under licence.

“We have a vaccine production company called Biovaccines Nigeria Limited, owed 49 percent by the federal government which is looking to partner with other vaccine producers and perhaps produce under licence here if the technology transfer discussions go through,” the minister said.

“So we have the possibility of not only using indigenously produced but also vaccines that come here as a result of technology transfer.”

It is not immediately clear if Osagie was referring to financial resources for the vaccines for which the federal government had given the green light.

He had said in January that the ministry of finance “has released N10 billion to support domestic vaccine production. While we are working to develop our own vaccines”.

Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), recently told TheCable that the issue of local vaccine production is a “complex one” and that the government’s “immediate priority” is to access existing vaccines.