The Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIRM) has linked the inability to develop a vaccine for the numerous diseases ravaging the country, to adequate funding from the government.
Babatunde Salako, director-general of the institute, said the research institute is still in expectation of funds from the federal government for the research and possible development of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
“Since we were brought to the table after the first case of the virus was confirmed around February, no funding whatsoever has been given to the NIMR by the government,” Salako said.
“But if we can have dedicated funds there are a lot of Nigerian students in the universities and in the research institute that can develop a homegrown vaccine that can tackle it, but the NIMR is not getting enough funds to develop a vaccine,” he said.
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Much of what is gotten for the institute are from donors from international communities which is small if we are looking at producing a vaccine, Salako said.
The whole world is racing for the production of a vaccine for the cure of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, as that would help in calming the tension from the outbreak which has spread across 200 countries and infected more than 4 million people.
United State listed biopharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences, has developed Remdesivir medicine, which has gotten the nod of the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its counterparts in Japan, for the treatment of COVID 19.
Madagascar has also developed a home grow medicine which it says can cure the deadly virus. The World health organisation is yet to approve any vaccine for the treatment of the virus.
For Nigeria, Salako noted that much of what is being done is the investigation to the production of a vaccine rather than having the actual capacity to produce a vaccine. He noted that the last time Nigeria developed a vaccine was in 1982, in the event of the yellow fever
According to him, most of the funds the institute gets are donor funding, which does not address a national problem that is specific to a particular problem, a more reason why a vaccine has not been developed for Lassa fever and other outbreak that is peculiar to the country.
“What we do in most cases is to work with developmental institutes, and apply for grants like any other scientist everywhere in the world. We compete for them to see whether we can win any,” he said.
“As I speak to you, we have more than 20 international grants we have applied for. We hope in a few weeks, we might get a grant for COVID 19,” Salako said but noting that such amounts coming from donor fundings are usually too small to move the needle. “If we must produce a vaccine, we have dedicated funds for it but sadly, we haven’t seen any,” he said.
The NIRM has gotten the approval of the National Food, Drugs and Administration (NAFDAC) to begin the clinical trial of Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, for the treatment of the virus, and by next week, the patient should be used to recoup the trial, the DG said.
Salako, who spoke in an interview on Sunrise Daily, a program aired on Channels TV, said although the health ministry, which the research institute is under, has received various herbal medicines, claiming to be good for the treatment of the virus yet many of such medicines have only proven to be good at treating respiratory symptoms target at coronavirus but not for the treatment of the virus holistically.
