The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved the use of additional three new Covid-19 vaccines in Nigeria.
Recall that TheNewsBeam reported that the agency approved the use of AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine for an Emergency Use Listing (EUL), an initial approval given by WHO on Monday, February 15, 2021, stating that, it received the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine dossier from Serum Institute of India.
In addition to this, NAFDAC has added three new covid-19 vaccines for Nigerians use which include: Moderna (Rovi Pharma Madrid, Spain); AstraZeneca AZD1222 [SK Bioscience Co Limited (Republic of Korea)]; and Sputnik V (Gamaleya National Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russia).
Disclosing this on Thursday in Abuja, the Director General of the agency, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye revealed that:
“Moderna and AstraZeneca AZD1222 vaccines have received WHO EUL listing and were given expedited approvals,
“Sputnik V is yet to receive the EUL approval and therefore was subjected to full six-months review by NAFDAC.
“The Agency was granted access to the dossiers and prior assessment reports of Moderna and AstraZeneca from the WHO website at different times over the past two months.”
Furthermore, Adeyeye stated that the NAFDAC Vaccine Committee has granted approval of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines and conditional approval of Sputnik V vaccine adding that the agency has been carefully assessing several vaccines despite the fact the vaccines have been approved by stringent regulatory countries or have received WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL).