Covid Vaccines
Femi Falana raises alarm over planned commercialisation of coronavirus vaccines
Naijaloaded The Alliance for Survival of COVID-19 and Beyond, a coalition of labour and civil society groups being led by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has urged Nigerians to resist any attempt by health workers to commercialise Covid vaccines expected in the country anytime soon. ASCAB Deputy Chairman, Sina Odugbemi, stated this on Tuesday while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme monitored by newsmen. Odugbemi said, “When it (vaccine) comes in, people may want to trade with it and there may be preference for the high and mighty. We should anticipate these things and put in place machinery to ensure that we scale the hurdle because the Nigerian factor will come into play when the vaccines come in. “There will be special preference. In fact, health offi...
India’s Serum Institute seeks approval for COVID-19 vaccine
The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine producer by volume, has sought government approval for emergency-use authorisation of the coronavirus vaccine that it has developed in partnership with the University of Oxford and British drugmaker AstraZeneca. “As promised, before the end of 2020, @SerumInstIndia has applied for emergency use authorisation for the first made-in-India vaccine, COVISHIELD,” the company CEO Adar Poonawalla tweeted on Monday. The experimental vaccine can be stored at two to eight degrees Celsius and can be distributed more easily in India, which has the world’s second-highest number of infections at 9.6 million. The company has applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), with Poonawalla saying the vaccine will “save countless lives” witho...
