Africa Didn’t Receive Mpox Vaccine – Ex-DG NCDC, Prof Nasidi

Former Director-General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Professor Abdusalam Nasidi, has lamented that Africa was marginalized in the distribution of the Monkeypox vaccine the first time it was developed.

Professor Abdusalam Nasidi said Europe and other developed nations were the focus of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the vaccine distribution even though Africa was the continent affected by the disease.

Professor Nasidi said this while reacting to 39 cases of the Monkeypox virus reported across the country, in an interview with Arise TV.

Speaking about the vaccine and its availability in Nigeria, Nasidi said the vaccine for the Mpox virus did not go through the supposed clinical trial because of the emergency.

He said, “Fortunately and unfortunately there is a new vaccine that was developed and in the view of the fact that the threat was becoming higher they gave it emergency use authorization to use the vaccine even without all those WHO and FDA or NAFDAC requirements for very detailed clinical trial.

“So the vaccine was used in the areas, in Europe and other developed world where they found cases, in a ring vaccination manner; that means you have a case you immunize everybody around, it was very effective. It neutralized the further spread of the disease.

“But what happened to Africa was unfortunate where the disease is endemic, we could not gain access to that vaccine as we should have. 

“It is the countries that are not endemic that got it sporadically, that had the vaccines and they did not release it to Africa.

“When we face WHO and others why is it that we are the ones that have the disease and now there is the vaccine and we do not have access; what we were told was that we did not make a necessary demands you know to get the vaccine to be release.”

The former NCDC DG emphasized that Nigeria and Africa must invest in manufacturing local vaccines. He disclosed that Nigeria, with over 200 million population will be expecting only 10,000 Mpox vaccines from WHO.

“For instance, Nigeria with 220 million population will be proud to receive only 10,000 vaccines doses of vaccine.  So you can imagine if we are not self -sufficient in these products, we shall be in trouble from time to time.

“This is the time to look inwards and start creating and establishing vaccine manufacturing drug manufacturing plans and liberate ourselves,” Nasidi added.