If Vaccines Brought Into The Country Are Not Safe, We Will Reject Them – NAFDAC DG

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has said that if the COVID-19 vaccines brought into Nigeria are not safe for use and of top quality, they will be rejected.

“The vaccines brought into the public space for use by our people are of quality and it is safe,” NAFDAC’s Director-General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye said on Tuesday during her appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.

“If it’s not of quality and it is not safe; we will reject it because I cannot sleep in the night and think that the vaccines that have been approved, or any drug will affect patients adversely”.

There had been speculations about the side effects such as blood clots from the use of the vaccines.

READ ALSO: Second Phase Of COVID-19 Vaccination To Begin August 16 – NPHCDA

But the DG in her response emphasised that her job is to ensure the quality of vaccines and drugs imported into the country for use.

“I don’t lose sleep at all because it is my profession and what I have thought students from across the world, it is a product that my own people will use, whichever way you look at it, it is a very serious business for me”.

Nigeria is getting ready to commence its second phase of the national vaccination programme.

The second phase was expected to kickstart on Tuesday after the US donated over four million doses of the Moderna vaccine.

But in a statement on Sunday, a spokesperson in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey, said the start of the exercise had been moved due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

The exercise was later moved to August 16, this is according to the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib.

The postponement is said to enable NAFDAC to finish its assessment and preparatory processes.”

So far, only about one per cent of Nigeria’s population has been fully vaccinated.