By JVINN Okafor (Managing Editor) @AuntyJVIN
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has said the agency will only give approval to Covid-19 Herbal medicines that are backed by proper research. NAFDAC also also said such herbal medicine must be anti-viral to cater for various illnesses.
This was made known in Abuja at the weekend by the NAFDAC's Director General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, shortly after she was vaccinated for Covid-19. She stated that the Agency had taken samples of 14 of such herbal medicine for NAFDAC listing, just to clinically verify how safe they were for public use. Adeyeye hinted that the Agency must also do its own clinical trials before any of the herbal medicine being investigated would get approval. The NAFDAC boss however disclosed that the Federal Government had arranged for research and development scheme for the health sector, adding that, a lot of herbal medicine were going to be used for the testing.
On the rumored effects of Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine, Prof. Adeyeye, assured the nation that the vaccine recently inaugurated and distributed to states for the treatment Corona Virus infection, has no side effect. She disclosed that NAFDAC went through the application dossier of the vaccine before it was approved to be administered on Nigerians for the treatment of COVID-19.
Said Prof Adeyeye: "When we (NAFDAC) got the dossier or the application of the vaccine, we went through it line by line, but before we got the application itself, we went through other assessments. I am talking about their assessment report so that we are prepared and guided when we start our own and that was exactly what happened. “We conclude based on quality, safety and efficacy because we have to depend on the report, this particular AstraZeneca vaccine, over 20, 000 people were involved in phase three of the report,’’ she said.
The NAFDAC DG however stated that the effectiveness of AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risk, as it has already been scrutinized. She noted that there was no medicine without its side effect, especially when still going through the developmental stage.
Adeyeye said that from all indications of quality and efficacy, the benefit of AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risk and the side effect. (With additional reports from NAN). NNL.
