The Registrar and Secretary-General of the West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science, Dr Godswill Okara, has said Nigeria’s refusal to budget for the acquisition of modern tools and equipment hampered local vaccine production over the years.
Okara said this at a press briefing for the 2021 Regional Conference and Induction of Elected Fellows of the West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science in Abuja.
According to Okara, “Nigeria had before now produced a number of human vaccines but like we talked about lack of infrastructural facilities. Instead of upgrading the facilities, we have in the vaccine production lab in Yaba, we allowed it to go into dilapidation.”
He said the first President of the Association of Medical Scientists of Nigeria, late Mr Nwachukwu, was in charge of the smallpox vaccine production lab in Yaba to a point that World Health Organization (WHO) commissioned that lab to produce millions of doses of smallpox vaccine that was used in the West African sub-region to eradicate smallpox.
“If we could do that, it was just a question of upgrading the facility because a lot of analogue techniques have been abandoned and overtaken by modern technology.
“Nigeria refused to budget for acquisition of those modern tools that will enable the production of vaccine in the country.
“We also produced yellow fever vaccine from that same lab but as we speak, yellow fever vaccine is being imported on large scale into Nigeria.
“Anti-rabies vaccine was also produced in that same lab and it is also gratifying to mention that our colleagues in National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom, are producing over 18 different animal vaccines which shows you that production of vaccines is not rocket science.
“It is something doable and it is something within our professional training competence and ability. It is just a question of political will and producing enabling environment.”
Okara also noted that vaccines have been shown to be the most cost-effective way of controlling epidemic-prone diseases like cholera, Lassa fever, meningitis.
“Few weeks ago, WHO announced that the malaria vaccine has been introduced which shows you that in science, there is nothing impossible.
“That was considered impossible few years ago because of the heterogeneity of the antigenic nature of malaria. It was very difficult to design and produce vaccines against it but in 2021 it is a different story.”
The West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science is a statutory specialized professional Postgraduate training institution of the ECOWAS region. The college was established to train specialists in all the subdisciplines and specialities of the medical laboratory science profession, to strengthen manpower capacity for efficient healthcare service, health research, disease detection, accurate diagnosis, disease surveillance, prevention and control in the West African region.
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