The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for use in the treatment and prevention of coronavirus in Nigeria.
The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, who gave this hint during a live briefing on Thursday, said that the vaccine can be stored at 2 to 8-degree centigrade.
According to her, there are three other vaccines currently undergoing evaluation by the agency.
She explained that laboratory tests on Astrazeneca showed that the vaccine is effective against the UK variant of the virus already reported to be present in the country.
The NAFDAC boss disclosed that the South African variant had not been reported in Nigeria, adding that the agency has over 30 herbal medicines now undergoing review for listing.
It would be recalled that the vaccine was recently approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency use.
Prof. Adeyeye said the agency got the dossier of the vaccine a week ago and that its Safety Committee worked immediately on it 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).
