London, Dec.27, 2020 (AltAfrica)-Some Nigerian scientists have kicked against planned roll-out of covid-19 vaccination in Nigeria saying that immunising Nigerians with COVID-19 vaccine when clinical trials have not been done in the country is very risky and should be reconsidered.

They also expressed worries over its likely long-term impacts.

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Speaking with PUNCH HealthWise, a virologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Prof. Sunday Omilabu said Nigeria should exercise caution before accepting to immunise citizens with vaccines that were granted emergency use approval in Europe and the United States and not at home

Omilabu, who is also the director, Centre for Human and Zoonotic Virology at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, said it might be very risky to start immunising Nigerians and Africans with the COVID-19 vaccines as they have not gone through the regular scientific process before the emergency approval

Deeply grateful to my team @NCDCgov

Today, colleagues spent Christmas at the Nat. Reference Lab, on the field across states & in our EOCs. We can’t afford to pause the response

It has been a long year, but the team’s dedication, is an example of what’s possible#keeppushing pic.twitter.com/zpqEeUj6bg

— Chikwe Ihekweazu (@Chikwe_I) December 25, 2020

A similar opinion was expressed by a Pharmaceutical Research Scientist with the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Abuja, Prof. Martin Emeje.

Nigeria expects its batch of vaccines by first quarter of 2021, with the Director-General of the National Centre for Disease Control, Dr. ChikweIhekweazu, saying that 20 percent of the population would have access to the vaccine.

According to the World Health Organisation, while three COVID-19 vaccines have received ‘emergency use approval’ of some national regulatory authorities, none of them has received the pre-qualification by the WorldHealthOrganisation.

The WHO, however, disclosed that an assessment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is expected by the end of December, adding that assessment of other vaccine candidates will follow thereafter.

According to Nature, the fastest any vaccine had previously been developed, from viral sampling to approval, was four years, and that was for mumps in the 1960s.

Nature in its article, The lightning-fast quest for COVID vaccines — and what it means for other diseases, reported that Pfizer and BioNTech got their vaccines approved less than eight months after the trial started, noting that the rapid turnaround was achieved by overlapping trials and because they did not encounter safety concerns.

The quest for COVID-19 vaccine which started in early 2020 has, therefore, resulted in vaccines being used for immunisation by December – a period of less than a year.

Recall that vaccine developer, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna applied for emergency use approvals for their vaccines in the United States and from the European Union drug regulator after some positive results from their clinical trials.

While the United States Food and Drug Administration has already granted emergency use approval for COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the European Medicines Agency has also approved COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s total COVID-19 cases since February hit 83, 576 on Saturday night, with 829 new ones announced by Nigeria Centre For Disease Control (NCDC).

829 new cases of #COVID19Nigeria;

Lagos-296
FCT-291
Kaduna-79
Rivers-40
Kano-35
Nasarawa-25
Bauchi-19
Benue-8
Borno-7
Edo-7
Oyo-7
Sokoto-7
Cross River-3
Jigawa-
Ogun-2

83,576 confirmed
70,495 discharged
1,247 deaths pic.twitter.com/I8Z1p2FmvH

— NCDC (@NCDCgov) December 26, 2020

So far, 925,215 samples have been tested in the country.

While the death toll increased by one to 1,247, the number of discharged rose to 70,495.

On Saturday, 256 patients were discharged after recovering from the virus from isolation centres across the country.

NCDC explained the composition of the discharged:

“Our discharges today include 113 community recoveries in Lagos State and 92 community recoveries in Kaduna State managed in line with guidelines,” it said