Nigeria is set to pilot innovative technologies for detecting fake, substandard and degraded vaccines following the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control’s (NAFDAC) participation in a £3.7 million international research project aimed at strengthening vaccine quality surveillance and regulatory oversight.

The three-year initiative, funded by the United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council (MRC) through its Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS), is being led by the Medicine Quality Research Group (MQRG) at the University of Oxford.

Other partners include NAFDAC, Obafemi Awolowo University, the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the University of East London and the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Thailand.

The project seeks to strengthen global vaccine quality surveillance by developing and validating innovative technologies capable of detecting substandard, degraded and falsified vaccines. It is also expected to support evidence-based regulatory decision-making and boost public confidence in vaccine safety and effectiveness.

In a statement, the Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said the initiative would strengthen post-marketing surveillance through the evaluation of novel screening devices, routine vaccine lot-release laboratory testing and health economics studies to determine the cost-effectiveness of different testing approaches in Nigeria.

She explained that the project builds on the Vaccine Identity Evaluation (VIE) Consortium, established during the COVID-19 pandemic to address the growing global threat posed by substandard and falsified vaccines.

According to Adeyeye, previous research conducted by the Medicine Quality Research Group in collaboration with the University of Oxford’s Departments of Biochemistry and Chemistry, the STFC Central Laser Facility and the UKRI Rutherford Appleton Laboratory successfully adapted advanced scientific techniques to detect degraded and falsified vaccines within supply chains.

Building on those findings, she said the new phase of the project would further refine the technologies before assessing their performance under near real-world conditions in Nigeria.

The pilot implementation is expected to generate evidence on the effectiveness of the technologies for routine vaccine quality monitoring and support wider adoption where appropriate.

As Nigeria’s National Regulatory Authority, NAFDAC will play a central role in implementing the project by strengthening vaccine quality surveillance and supporting evidence-based regulatory decision-making.

The agency said the initiative aligns with its commitment to safeguarding public health through science-driven regulation, innovation and international collaboration. It added that the project would generate critical evidence to support the deployment of screening technologies capable of verifying vaccine quality throughout the supply chain, reinforcing efforts to ensure that only safe and effective vaccines reach the public.