BY FOLASHADE KEHINDE
THE National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has warned Nigerians against taking COVID-19 vaccines without the approval of the agency.
The agency raised the alarm that fake COVID-19 vaccines were in circulation, saying it had neither approved the use of vaccines nor received applications from COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.
Director-General, NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, who gave the warning during a virtual press conference on Friday, said, “COVID-19 vaccines are new, and the side effects must be well monitored. Therefore, if NAFDAC does not approve, the public should not use.”
The National Primary Health Care Development Agency had released the details of how the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine doses would be distributed across states.
This was disclosed during a webinar organised by NHPCDA tagged “Sensitisation Meeting with Media Gatekeepers on COVID-19 Vaccine Introduction.”
Executive Director, NPHCDA, Faisal Shuaib,
had said the country would receive 100,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at the end of January.
Bassey Okposen, programme manager, national emergency routine immunisation coordination centre, NPHCDA, during his presentation at the webinar, also said the vaccines would be administered around the last week of January or early February.
According to him, states with higher percentage of confirmed cases will be given additional doses, while frontline health workers will be prioritised.
