The House of Representatives has passed for second reading, a bill seeking to establish a centre, the Nigeria Centre for Vaccine Research and Development, with the mandate to produce vaccines locally.
Sponsor of the bill, Bello Maigari, while leading the debate at the plenary on Tuesday, regretted that Nigeria is suffering capital flight over vaccine importation.
Maigari said, “We spent billions of naira just to procure vaccines for COVID-19. There are so many diseases that are unknown to other nations; they are not even aware of the existence of these diseases in our country. We are the only people that can develop these vaccines.
“Malaria, for instance, is killing many Nigerians daily. This bill, if passed into law, will help the nation to develop its own vaccine and save a lot of money we expend annually.
“Bill Gates established the same type of research centre in America, which is developing hundreds of millions of vaccines yearly; whereas in the whole of Africa, we don’t have any vaccine developing centre. So, it is very important if we can have this bill passed into law. It will help our researchers in terms of developing these vaccines to ensure that the diseases existing in Nigeria are taken care of.”
The Chairman of the House Ad Hoc Committee on COVID-19, Haruna Mshelia, in his contribution, said, “It is an important bill. I stood in this House some time back (to say) that out of the 15 antigens that we use for vaccines, none is produced in Nigeria.
“We have made efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic to see that we start manufacturing vaccines. The manufacturing is the endpoint, we have to research fast. Even though we have some research institutes, the country needs one specifically for research development and manufacturing to tackle present and future diseases.”
The Majority Whip, Mohammed Monguno, noted that Nigeria had a similar centre in Jos, Plateau State, which had become dilapidated and that efforts should be made to get it up and running again.
“We have a vaccine production research institute in Jos — inasmuch as I am not opposing the creation of a vaccine development centre in Nigeria, I am craving for the indulgence of this house to further boost and reinforce the Nigeria Institute of Veterinary Research in Jos so that it can carry out its mandate without hindrance,” Monguno said.
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