The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has called on international partners to support Nigeria’s drive to restart local vaccine manufacturing.

The Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, made the call at the 8th Nigeria Pharma Manufacturers’ Expo held in Lagos, organised by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, PMG-MAN.

Prof. Adeyeye said Nigeria must revive its local vaccine production capacity to achieve the World Health Organisation, WHO, Maturity Level 4 for vaccine lot release.

According to her, NAFDAC is required to meet nine functions for full benchmarking for medicines and vaccines, but has only attained eight, with vaccine lot release still outstanding due to lack of local manufacturing.

She acknowledged the role of international partners in helping NAFDAC attain Maturity Level 3, and challenged them to invest in fill-and-finish modular vaccine plants to close the final gap.

“We want to call on our international partners that have been of tremendous help. Without them we wouldn’t have been here. I want to challenge them to contribute to fill-and-finish modular vaccine manufacturing so that we can get our vaccine lot release,” she said.

The NAFDAC boss noted that Nigeria used to manufacture vaccines in the past and has the technical capacity to do so again, adding that the cost has been estimated and would not be too high.

“We cannot afford to go back to where we used to be. It is high time we went back to vaccine manufacturing,” she stressed.

She also commended President Bola Tinubu’s Executive Order of 2024, describing it as a game-changer that provides incentives for local manufacturers operating under difficult conditions.

Source: ARISE NEWS / ThisDay