Nigeria’s candidate COVID-19 vaccine ready in 18 months

Nigeria has begun moves for a candidate vaccine for COVID-19 within the next 18 months. Already, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has committed N450 million to support the process.

Meanwhile, about $500 million is needed yearly for concrete research that could impact the economy.

Project Manager, Nigeria COVID-19 Research Coalition (NCRC), Prof. Poopola Mustapha, who disclosed this at a colloquium organised by the coalition, yesterday, in Abuja, noted that about $500 million was required for research and development in the health sector, adding that the proposition by the African Union (AU) “is that countries should set aside one per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a contribution for research and development (R&D).

His words: “Our National GDP is $500 billion and one per cent of this is $5 billion. Presently, the highest grant portfolio for research is around $20 million. The health sector is in the requirement of nothing less than $500 million yearly to have concrete research that could be of impact on the economy. For the first time in the country, TETFund is capitalising on research and development that has an interface between the government, private sector and the academia, and we are actually focusing on the people.”

Mustapha explained that before now, TETFund used to concentrate on funding for research and development only in the tertiary education sector, but for the first time, it brought together five institutions that are having real-time business in terms of the development of vaccines in the country, using the COVID-19 model.

He noted that institutions involved include the National Veterinary Research Institute (NDRI), Usman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto; the University of Jos and the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), as “we are looking at the reagents component of what is needed so that it can be produced locally.”

Also speaking, the Coordinator of NCRC, Dr. Chinwe Ochu, while advocating for domestic funding for the pandemic and other health research in the country, stated that her organisation was set up to conduct COVID19 research, but regretted the absence of dedicated funding.