FG  Endorses Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control  (NAFDAC) has endorsed the use of pfizer-Bio Tech  COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria.

Professor Mojisola Adeyeye,the  Director-General of the agency, who  announced this in Lagos,said  that the pfizer-Bio Tech vaccine was for emergency use only.

Adeyeye said based on new development from the manufacturers, the vaccine can now be stored between -15% to -25%, which is equivalent to freezer temperature.

She added that the National Primary Health Care Development  Agency (NPHCDA) has capacity to store the doses of the vaccine.

The NAFDAC boss said in Nigeria the vaccine can only be procured through the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH).

She added that the vaccine would be brought to the country through the COVAX facility, which ensures that poor and developing countries have access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Adeyeye, while explaining that NAFDAC considered a lot of factors before the approval was given, revealed that the agency  has put place machinery to tackle any post vaccination effect.

On the emergency use authorisation, she explained that it is not a full approval.

“Emergency approval is only used during a pandemic like this and not full approval.

“It is within the period of getting people vaccinated and gathering data about the adverse events following immunisation.”

According to her, such adverse effects could be slight fever; it could be pain at the site of injection; there are so many of them which will all be documented.”

“It is after that approval for emergency use that we start gathering data. And then data gathering is not limited to NAFDAC alone. NAFDAC belongs to an organisation called international coalition of medicine regulatory authorities (ICMRA), which is a global gathering of regulatory agencies across the world.

“We share our experience and such information is subsequently disseminated to manufacturers of the vaccines which they act upon to improve the vaccine in subsequent production.

“We share our experiences, for example, for the AstraZeneca vaccine that the first phase got finished following immunisation. NAFDAC launched med safety app last year. It is an app that can be downloaded on the App Store iPhone or Android And it is through that app that we got a lot of data and in areas where the internet connection was not good enough, there is what we call the yellow form.  We have surveillance staff from different agencies, our pharmacovigilance staff to use the app to collect the events and follow up because we want to be sure that all the facts that follow immunisation of data.”