The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN),says Nigeria will produce its COVID-19 vaccine by 2022 to bridge the gap in vaccine production and vaccination in the country.
President of the association,Pharm.Sam Ohuabunwa,disclosed this
during the commemoration of World Hepatitis Day in Lagos,where he also deplored the unacceptable gap in vaccination with attendant ravaging rate of the new strain, Delta variant .
This,he said,is because Delta spreads two times faster than the most common strain, especially in the unvaccinated.
He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called this version of the virus “the fastest.” while the CDC of the United States labeled Delta as “a variant of concern. Delta variant, a SARS-CoV-2 mutation that originally surfaced in India in December 2020, is real and the strain spread rapidly and almost becoming the dominant strain of the virus.
According to him,it is the most dominant strain presently in India and the UK, by the end of June, made up more than 20 per cent of cases in the U.S. and has been identified in Nigeria.”
He said,in order to achieve herd immunity, the government wants to vaccinate 40 per cent of the country’s population by the end of this year and the remaining 30 per cent by the end of next year, 2021 in order for the country to return to the desired new normal.
According to him,currently,Nigeria received about 3,938,945 doses of Oxford–AstraZeneca from COVAX in early March of 2021 and statistics available shows that, from March fifth to July 10th, Nigeria’s population who are fully vaccinated are about 1,404,740 (0.70 per cent), those who received first dose are about 1,129,465 people (0.56 per cent) while about 198,465,795 people (98.74 per cent) are unvaccinated, hence the need to close the unacceptable gap.
Nigeria,he said, is still far from its target, mostly because she does not control the vaccine availability.
He added: “We have the human resources; we must summon the political will to make it happen. While we align with the COVAX arrangement, we implore the government to explore other avenues like purchasing from the list of vaccines already authorized by NAFDAC and granting permission to the private sector to provide vaccines. We need all hands on deck.
He implored Nigerians to continue with the stipulated non pharmaceutical measures, which are; the use of face masks, social distance, frequent washing of hands and use of hand sanitizer to avert a crisis that could overwhelm our fragile health care delivery system.
