RADIO NIGERIA
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has approved the use of the Oxford-made AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in Nigeria.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye stated this at a press briefing in Abuja.
She said the vaccine can be stored at minus two to minus eight degree centigrade.
According to the NAFDAC Boss, there are three additional vaccines undergoing evaluation, but the evaluation on Astrazeneca shows that the vaccine is effective against the UK variant of the virus which has been reported in Nigeria.
Prof Adeyeye who disclosed that the South African variant had not yet been reported in Nigeria, noted that the agency had over thirty herbal medicine undergoing review for listing.
She said the Agency got the dossier of the vaccine a week ago, and the NAFDAC safety committee went to work immediately to evaluate its safety and efficacy for Nigerians.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, also known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, or AZD1222, is a viral vector vaccine.
Scientists used an adenovirus, originally derived from chimpanzees, and modified it with the aim of training the immune system to mount a strong response against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19