The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu,
said on Tuesday that Nigeria will take advantage of
the Ebola Vaccine if released by the American
government. He said, “At the moment, Nigeria is
reaching out to various laboratories, and various
governments including the United States to see
how some of this untried drugs and vaccines that
seemed to hold out some hopes could also be
deployed in Nigeria and it is possible that very soon
we would also be administering the vaccines on
extremely serious cases.
“What is important is that we had already
established a mechanism to explore all possible
suggestions. Apart from the American vaccine,
there are others but none had gone through all the
necessary clinical processes.
“Some had gone through phases one and two but
none had gone through phase three. We are
reaching out to research institutions in about three
countries, so it is work in progress.”Chukwu
stressed that “even with the vaccines, whether
approved, licensed, or registered, what is important
is that all of them will only compliment what has
been the well tried out treatment protocol in Ebola
virus.”He noted that the most important measure
was to achieve early diagnosis, early isolation, and
nutrition which included the use of electrolyte
which the patient in Lagos are receiving.He said,
“That is why many of them are almost ready to go,
they are getting better. Our patients are getting the
treatment according to established WHO
protocol.”He explained that the experimental
vaccines being administered by some countries
have not gone through due clinical trials but that
their laws permitted them though with the
informed consent of the patients. In Nigeria, he
said, “our national research ethics code also
permits such practice under exigency or when
there is epidemic and there had been drugs or
vaccines though not yet concluded in terms of
clinical trials, which we could deploy into the
patients.”
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