The World Health Organisation Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Fiona Braka, has said there has been an accelerated effort to get a vaccine ready between the next 12 to 18 months.
“Thanks to the rapid sharing of sequencing data from countries; we are able to advance the production of vaccines and we do acknowledge the contributions of countries in sharing their genetics sequencing data, including Nigeria. And so, the first vaccine trials started as early as 60 days just after the genetic sequencing information was shared by China,” she said on Monday while responding to questions on the stages so far attained by researchers on developing a curative vaccine against the pandemic.
According to her, there are about 89 vaccine products and the numbers are still being updated because there is an accelerated effort going on globally to find a vaccine for the virus.
“It takes years to develop a vaccine but with the acceleration of this effort we are hopeful that with an expedited process, we are probably looking at 12 to 18 months before the first product will be available,” she stated.
Source: THISDAY
