The Director General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, (NAFDAC) Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has warned Nigerians not to take any vaccine except the ones approved by the agency.

She gave this warning at a virtual briefing on Friday, saying. the World Health Organization’s (WHO) approval was not enough for the use of the vaccine, except the regulatory agency certifies the vaccine safe for use.

Adeyeye further hinted that , “The WHO will say that unless the regulatory agency of a country approves a vaccine, it should not be used. WHO is not a regulatory agency that will approve and say use, they are there to guide and give regulatory agencies more confidence.

“If a product is already on WHO emergency use listing, the regulatory agency will still look at the application. That doesn’t mean we just pass it like that, we will have to read it within the context of our environment. No vaccine or commodity can be used unless it passes through NAFDAC in Nigeria.

“Vaccines should not be ordered by any company or corporation. The companies that manufacture the vaccines if they are genuine companies know they have to submit their application to NAFDAC.

“No government establishment or agencies should order COVID-19 vaccines without confirming from NAFDAC if the vaccine has been approved”, she stressed.

NAFDAC DG said the agency was discussing with manufactures of candidate COVID-19 vaccines concerning potential Emergency Use Authorisation, registration or licensing of their product as the case may be.

“The agency, however, assured applicants that if phase three clinical data are very convincing and robust with regards to safety and efficacy and the vaccine has been submitted for WHO for Emergency Use Listing, NAFDAC will welcome the application for Emergency Use Authorisation in Nigeria,” Adeyeye said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has advocated for collective commitment to get vaccinations for health workers and others who are at high risk of contracting COVID-19 within the next 100 days.

WHO’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, gave this hint in his speech posted on the UN health agency website on Tuesday, saying, Ghebreyesus said a year ago, the first death from COVID-19 was reported, and WHO issued its first tranche of technical guidance.

According to him; “The comprehensive package includes guidance on surveillance, laboratory testing, infection prevention and control, a readiness checklist, and risk communication and community engagement.

“A year on, there have been almost two million deaths from the COVID-19 virus.

“We are hopeful about the safe and effective vaccines that are being rolled out, we want to see this sped up and vaccines allocated equitably in the coming weeks.

“Next week at the WHO Executive Board, I will be encouraging all countries to fulfill their pledges to COVAX.

“I call for a collective commitment so that within the next 100 days, vaccination for health workers and those at high-risk in all countries are underway,” he said.

The director-general, also urged governments, manufacturers, civil society, religious and community leaders to come together to create the greatest mass mobilisation in history for equitable vaccination.

“WHO continues to ask vaccine manufacturers from around the world to move swiftly to provide the necessary data that will allow us to consider them for emergency use listings,” he said.

In addition, he was pleased that a WHO team was currently in China.

He said the team was currently working with producers of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines to assess compliance with international quality manufacturing practices ahead of potential emergency use listing by WHO.

“To clarify this is separate from the WHO origins mission.

“We also look forward to Serum Institute of India submitting full data sets for rapid assessment so WHO can determine whether we can recommend their AstraZeneca vaccine for international use.

“These are just a couple examples of work underway by WHO, GAVI, CEPI, and other partners aimed at the safe, rapid, equitable, and wise allocation of vaccines.

“As I have said before and will say again, saving lives, livelihoods and economies depend on a global agreement to avoid vaccine nationalism,” he said.

Ghebreyesus said yet another new variant or mutation of the virus, had emerged in Japan over the weekend, while transmissibility “appears to be increasing.”

Although the increased infectiousness could drive more cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, “at present, the variants do not seem to show increased severity of the disease,” he added, offering some reassurance.

According to him, with new treatments coming down the pipeline, we are hopeful that more lives of those with serious cases of COVID-19 can be saved. But we need to follow the public health basics, now more than ever.

The Director-General said most critical was to effectively sequence the DNA and composition of the virus, “so we know how it’s changing and how to respond.

“There may be a need to ‘tweak’ both diagnostics and vaccines in order to keep pace with the mutations.

“We call on all countries to increase the sequencing of the virus, to supplement on-going surveillance, monitoring and test efforts,” he said.

Maries Stops Nigeria has revealed that contraception including unsafe abortion contributed to an un acceptably high Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) of 451 deaths/100,000 lives births.  

Speaking on why MSION’s interventions are important in Nigeria, the Head Marketing and Communications , Marie Stopes Nigeria, Mrs Ogechi Onuoha said it becomes imperative to avert this deaths through proper planned birth.

She added,  more than 3,000 Nigeria women die completely every year  from  unsafe abortion, this is outside the countless number of persons that survived with life threatening complications especially infertility (loss of womb).

Onuoha gave this revelation at the 4th Annual Health Conference of the Association of Nigeria Health Journalists (ANHEJ), held in Goshen Nasarawa State.

She hinted that,  Nigeria Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) is very low at just only 20% with high level of unsafe abortion happening in the country even with the  restrictive laws. High fertility (5 on average and 6 in rural areas) and 20% unmet needs of family planning.

Recall that MSION is one of the only provider in Nigeria who offers access to high quality long acting and permanent method of counseling and services. 

The Minister of State for Health, Dr. Olorunnibe Mamora has hinted that Nigeria have crossed the 100,000 mark for confirmed cases of COVID-19, an evidence of increasing infection.

He also said that, about 100,087 cases have been confirmed while 80,030 cases have been discharged since this Pandemic began.

Mamora gave this hint at the Presidential Task force on COVID-19 yesterday in Abuja, while adding that they have also sadly recorded 1,358 deaths in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

Saying, in the last 24 hours, 1,024 new confirmed cases were recorded in 17 states with 8 deaths. ​The case fatality rate stands at 1.36%.

Mamora stated that, “So far, we have tested a total of 1,025,560 people with a positivity rate of 9.8%. Our testing rate in the last few weeks has increased as we continue to engage states to scale up their case finding and testing. We are working to meet our target of testing 2 million Nigerians within the shortest period.

“The result from the tests conducted on prospective NYSC members has incontrovertibly confirmed that no part of the country is free of COVID-19 disease. We safely and comfortably draw this conclusion because corps members are mobilized from all the states of the country for each of the orientation camps.

“With the increased number of confirmed cases, the number of active cases has increased. As of today, we have 18,699 active cases on treatment both in facility and in the community using the treatment protocols. Many of the active cases may require care in one of the treatment or isolation centres thus imposing enormous burden on our facilities.

He continued; “The report that many of those who died, reported late for treatment at the approved centres because they were referred late from private facilities is alarming. We therefore once again seize this opportunity to urge health care practitioners to promptly send all suspected cases for testing and when positive, refer them to isolation centres for treatment. Attempting to treat suspected or confirmed cases not only exposes the health workers in such a facility to risk of infection but also denies the patient early access to effective treatment in an approved treatment centre”.

The Minister further hinted that, the plan of the Federal Government regarding activation of oxygen availability in the States is on course with a view to effecting immediate repairs of non-functional oxygen plants.

He added that, the weekly Case Management Partners Coordination forum for 2021 is set to recommence on Wednesday 13th January, 2021. This is an avenue for continuous interface with different actors in case management towards engendering experience sharing.

He, however, reminded Nigerians , that COVID-19 is real but preventable. While we await the vaccines, we are enjoined to observe all non-pharmaceutical measures. Wear your face masks appropriately especially when out of your house, wash your hands with soap and water regularly or use hand sanitizer where necessary and avoid unnecessary travels.

He added that there is the need to avoid crowding as we see in people under the guise of National Identity Number Enrollment. There is absolutely no cause for this, if only people would voluntarily comply with advisories and guidelines as issued by the Ministry of Communications and its relevant Agency.

The statement credited to me on the social media as to the suspension of the exercise is out of context, hence misleading. For the
avoidance of doubt, Mr President’s order on the matter remains as being carried out by the relevant Ministry.