The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, yesterday, inaugurated the first indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine candidate for preclinical trials in Nigeria.

The Vaccine Development Consortium was formed by the Usman Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, UDUS.

TETFund had in the first instance, collaborated with the Nigeria Institute for Medical Research, NIMR, Yaba Lagos, and National Veterinary Research Institute, NVRI.

It subsequently involved the University of Jos and the National Research Institute for Chemical Technology, NARICT, Zaria.

Speaking at the event, Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary TETFund, described the occasion as a milestone on its sponsored Vaccine Development Mega Research.

Mr Echono said TETFund had been making concerted efforts aimed at identifying more innovative ways of using government and donor funding in research programmes and projects for maximum developmental impact.

“This is the basis of the institution of the Mega Research intervention by the Fund.

“The Intervention aims to strengthen decentralised cooperation involving clusters of researchers from different institutions to consolidate problem solving research and promote Innovation in Nigeria,” he said.

According to the executive secretary, the project is one out of the four projects supported by the fund at a total collaborative research by promoting sum of NI.25 billion.

He said the project had shown that collaboration among stakeholders, to address issues of national priority would achieve the desired goals towards national development and tackling of developmental challenges.

“It also indicates to us that we are moving in the right direction, as one of the mandates of the fund’s research and development department, is to promote multi-disciplinary research,” he added.

Mr Echono congratulated the group on the achievement and encouraged it not to relent in sustained efforts towards achieving the overarching goal of delivering a home-made COVID-19 vaccine.

Earlier, Prof. Lawal Bilbis, the Vice-Chancellor of UDUS, said the motive behind the development followed the terrible and unacceptable state of the country’s vaccine production capacity.

“More than 90 per cent of the vaccines used in Nigeria are imported from abroad through foreign donors.

“The COVID-19 pandemic had made us realise and understand that all multilateral agreements between Africa and other nations of the world can easily be disrupted in the event of global health crisis.

“This, therefore, left us with no option but to promote self-sufficiency through local vaccine research and development projects, using the biomedical scientists present in some of our universities and research institutes across the country.

“We decided to form a Vaccine Development Consortium with a view to bringing unique sets of skills to mastermind the development of the first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine,” he said.

Mr Bilbis assured the fund that the nation was very close to reaping the benefits of the investment, adding, “we will, by the special grace of God, converge in the next few months to celebrate its successful completion.” (NAN)

Resident Doctors Shelve Planned Nationwide Strike

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) said its members will not be embarking on industrial action.

The association’s President, Dr Innocent Orji, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja.

“The industrial action has been shelved for now as negotiations are ongoing with necessary government bodies to meet the demands of the association.

“The National Executive Council (NEC) of the association has mandated the National Officers Committee to engage the Federal Government further on issues already outlined and revert back to it if the need arises.

“We took this decision in public interest and peculiarities of the moment,” he said

The association had on Jan. 11, written a letter to the Federal Government addressing the Ministers of Health and Labour and Employment and other relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The letter was titled “Imminent Nationwide Industrial Disharmony in Health Sector: A Matter of Urgent Administrative Importance”.

In the letter, the resident doctors said there were lingering unresolved issues affecting their members and if those issues were not resolved before its NEC meeting between Jan. 24 and Jan. 28, there may be industrial action.

Those issues include irregularities in the new circular on upward review of the Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF), outstanding payment of the arrears of the new hazard allowance and non-payment of the skipping arrears for 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Also, non-payment of the consequential adjustment of minimum wage to some of its members, delay in the upward review of the

Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS), salary arrears of its members in State Tertiary Health Institutions running into several months, including Abia, Imo, Ondo, Ekiti and Gombe States.

It also stated the non-domestication of the Medical Residency Training Act (MRTA) in most states across the federation as one of the pending issues.