Nigeria has the highest number of cervical cancer incidents in sub-Saharan Africa with about 12,000 cases every year, and about 8,000 deaths.
Globally, Nigeria ranks number seven amongst the countries that have the highest incidents of cervical cancer.
The Managing Director of MSD for South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa region, and the President of the Innovative Pharmaceutical Association of South Africa (IPASA), Zweli Bashman, who disclosed this in an interview with The Guardian, said that first discussions around the introduction of a cervical cancer national control plan in Nigeria were between 2014 and 2015, while the vaccination programme was eventually launched in 2023.
Bashman noted that between 2023 and now, 14 million girls have been vaccinated against HPV in Nigeria.
He said, “Nigeria has become the biggest volume-contributing market from an HPV vaccine perspective. That is incredible; in such a short period of time, we are discussing how to escalate or speed up progress into the next years.”
“We need to start talking about vaccinating mid-adult women, women that are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s because they are also at risk. We need to start talking around how we expand vaccination to boys, because boys are also carriers of the HPV virus, and we also need to talk about how we create viable avenues and channels for the introduction of better technology vaccines like the nonavalent vaccines that are utilized in the Western world.”
Bashman observed that the firm has a longstanding partnership with UNICEF and Gavi, where it provides HPV vaccines to over 30 countries on the continent, particularly on the African continent, at highly discounted prices with the consciousness that access is critically important.
“Last year we reached approximately 17 million girls across the continent with the HPV vaccine. I rank it as the gold standard in terms of access-oriented partnerships with the ultimate aim of getting health care to the consumers that need it the most.”
Bashman noted that MSD, as an organization, is wholly focused on leveraging the power of science and innovation to address specific unmet health care needs.
“If you look at our portfolio at the moment, one of our marquee portfolios is oncology, where we’ve got an immuno-oncology product. It’s the number one pharmaceutical product in the world. We successfully registered the product a few months ago here in Nigeria. We are in the process of rolling out via a launch later this year. Then the other portfolio in the space of vaccines. Our marquee vaccine within the vaccine space is the HPV vaccine, and we’ve spoken a little bit about how widely spread that is utilized.”
“More pleasing for us is that when we look at the next five years, the pipeline of products that we will bring to the market is incredibly pleasing. We have an upward of 60 different assets that we’re going to be bringing to the market across a multitude of therapeutic areas – oncology, immunology, cardiovascular, ophthalmology – dealing with a multitude of different products that we believe play a very specific role in terms of unmet health care needs,” he added.
Bashman disclosed that the company has completed the registration of its Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the USA.
He explained that RSV is a respiratory disease that predominantly affects infants and is a big challenge across the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, going by statistics and how much it contributes to paediatric deaths.
According to him, the firm is planning for an expedited rollout across the continent considering the lasting impact it will make on our communities.”
Bashman emphasized the need for Nigeria to leverage innovative medicines to revolutionize the oncology landscape.
