Nigeria’s plans to join the league of vaccine producers received a big boost on Wednesday, as the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the construction of Maturity Level 3 laboratory at the cost of N3.06 billion
The council also approved N1.27bn for the laboratory equipment, as well as N4.35bn, for HIV/AIDS test kits.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu disclosed this while briefing State House journalists after the virtual FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Read Also: State House Clinic to get COVID-19 testing laboratory
The vaccine laboratory, which will be under the control of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), is a major requirement for the production of vaccines and is expected to assist Nigeria when the country start manufacturing vaccines.
“As you know NAFDAC is a regulatory organ and their job is to test the vaccines that are produced, whether they are fit or not. In order to do that, they must have laboratory, they must have the WHO approval of what we call the Maturity Level 3.
“So, they are working on getting Maturity Level 3 by having laboratories, including animal house and the remodeling of the existing facilities. So, those are the three memos that came to Council.
Nigeria is reported have succeeded in driving down the HIV prevalence from 3 percent to 1.3 percent.
“The nationality indicator and the impact survey was done recently, now we want to push it further down by being able to do more testing, particularly of mothers who may be carrying HIV and they don’t know it, and they can pass it on to their unborn children.
“That’s sort of called the prevention of mother to child transmission and also without routine tests that will be done on people who may have absolutely no symptom at all, but are carrying HIV virus.
“So, these test kits we are procuring and we’re also including those test kits that can also detect syphilis. Syphilis as you all know, is another sexually transmitted disease. So, this memo was presented today and passed by Council.
