Nigeria Volunteers for Covid-19 drugs to be tested... WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday revealed that Nigeria has expressed interest to be part of the global COVID-19 drug trials and the process will soon be initiated.


This was revealed by Fiona Braka the Officer in Charge, WHO Nigeria during the joint national briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, noting that efforts are underway to start the process in the country.

The solidarity trial announced on March 18 by WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, aims to compare the effectiveness of four drugs and drug combinations in treating COVID-19. By combining the results from many separate studies that adhere to the same protocol, the WHO hopes to glean strong evidence as a result of a large sample size.


Braka noted that so far, over 100 countries have joined the solidarity clinical trial which was launched by WHO and some partners, to help find an effective treatment for COVID-19

“Together with global health actors and partners, over the past week, WHO launched the access to COVID-19 tools ACT accelerator, a global collaboration to accelerate development for equitable access to new COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

“We have a total of 89 vaccines that are in development globally, including seven in clinical evaluation and several therapeutics are in clinical trials,” she said.


In addition, Braka said WHO is committed to ensuring that as medicines and vaccines are developed, they are shared equitably with all countries and people, adding “We do have the solidarity trial which is an international clinical trial to help find an effective treatment for COVID-19, launched by the WHO and partners.

According to a report in Nature, a peer-reviewed journal, on April 3, WHO said African nations, was missing from global COVID-19 trials.

The report also noted that of the over 300 clinical trials that have been launched to find a treatment for COVID-19, most are in China and South Korea, adding that more are on the way in the European Union and the United States.

“But very few are taking place in Africa, Latin America and south and Southeast Asia — where the virus could surge next.

“Trials need to be conducted in low-income countries for several reasons that experts cite.

“For example, patients in these countries can have different underlying conditions and it is important to know if they respond to drugs differently, compared with those in higher-income nations,” Nature’s report stated.