NAPHARM, editors move against doubts about COVID- 19 vaccines
• Urge Nigerians to seek information from experts
NIGERIA Academy of Pharmacy ( NAPHARM), in partnership with Nigeria Guild of Editors ( NGE), has launched a six- day media week on COVID- 19 to discuss and clear misconceptions and doubts about the vaccines.
At a virtual meeting on the event, Vice President of NAPHARM, Sir Ifeanyi Atueyi, said a committee of experts set up to address myths about vaccines during the media week would focus on facts and way forward on COVID- 19 pandemic.
On production of vaccines, Atueyi said: “Vaccines are not like common tablets which one would start processing, do clinical tests, market surveillance and start selling. Vaccine production takes time, it takes nothing less than two years. These entire things of trying to produce vaccines in the country now would only have been done by advanced nations who already have the infrastructure and are capable of producing vaccines. They are not what we can produce easily. What we have now all over the countr y are being rushed. Enough work has not been done on them.
“If you say a product will give us immunity for six years, then six years must elapse before you can prove it, but we are taking this because of the urgency involved. With the minimum test that has been done, we ha ve discovered that we can use them, and we are managing them. Nigeria cannot rush it today. It is not a simple product.”
While calling on Nigerians and the media to seek the right information, Atueyi charged them to shun those inciting others to a void COVID- 19 vaccination.
President of NGE, Mr. Isah Mustapha, said: “Up till now, there is still a lot of myths surrounding the COVID- 19. Some say it is not real and some say it is a device from the western countr y to depopulate Africa. The truth of the matter is this, you can only act based on the infor - mation available to y ou. I was in the village during Easter and I heard some people saying the pandemic is not real and that it is a means for doctors to get money.”