By Hassan Zaggi
The National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), has concluded plans to develop what it christened solution strategy paper that will guide government, development partners and other critical stakeholders in pandemic situations.
This is in an effort to preventing the harsh impact of pandemics in the future in the country and the world at large.
The strategy will also provide solution on how to mitigate the challenges in various diverse yet interrelated areas, including supply chain disruption, commodity security, food security socio-cultural security, national security, socio-religious relations, unemployment, deployment of palliatives for citizens supports, Research and Development (R&D) funding during epidemics.
The Director General NIPRD, Dr. Obi Adigwe, disclosed this during the International Conference on Health Access Beyond COVID-19, in Abuja, recently.
The Conference which was the first of its kind globally, was also “the first time any institution in Nigeria has been able to gather the crème de la crème of erudite scholars and solution finders, to engage, innovate and synthesize new and better approaches of solving the global problem of COVID-19 and future pandemics.”
Dr. Adigwe further disclosed that: “Similar to this proactive intervention, NIPRD is leading its peers in contextual healthcare solutions by developing cutting edge interventions that will dominate the African landscape over the next two decades.” These, according to him, include the contextual processing protocol; active pharmaceutical ingredient/excipients development; establishment of Africa’s first Nanomedicine Laboratory and Training Programme; Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in drug discovery and health solution provision.
“With the right partnership, these will ensure that Nigeria emerges Africa’s phytomedicines and drug manufacturing hub,” he stressed.
Speaking on what NIPRD did to drastically reduce the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in the country, Dr. Adigwe disclosed that: “Within a few days of the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic by WHO, NIPRD immediately embarked upon and developed an affordable hand-sanitizer for use in the country as part of the immediate national response to combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This initiative was able to address the challenges of quality and shortage of supply of hand sanitizers as witnessed in many parts of the world.
“Earlier, our operational research team had established that there were in circulation a large number of fake and substandard alcohol based hand-sanitizers in the Nigerian market.
“Furthermore, with intense desire towards finding a cure, the nation, and indeed other parts of the world, was inundated with plethora of claims of cure for COVID-19.
“As part of our R&D response, the Institute convened a National Scientific Advisory Committee to develop a standard Verification and Validation Protocol, to delineate products with health potentials from spurious claims and save citizens from harmful toxic effects of unsafe and ineffective products.
“The committee was made up of over 20 professionals and Academics from different Universities, Research Centers and International Organizations across Nigeria. The Protocol contains guidelines for processing and validating products’ claims. It was applied to the Madagascan COVID organics and other local claims. The results from the studies guided policies of the PSC and many other nations and global organization on the veracity of claims.
“While this document was developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, its contents are generic and now being applied for the verification of phytomedicines medicines in general by many research based institutions.
He further revealed that: “Few months into the pandemic, we developed three products which received Listing registration status from Nigeria’s food and drug regulatory agency – NAFDAC; two of the products are being put forward for clinical trials.”
The conference which was declared open by the Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, was attended by prominent stakeholders in the health sector.
