COVID-19: NAFDAC DG says AstraZeneca vaccine has no side effects

The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has said the Astrazeneca vaccine used in treating COVID-19 has no side effect.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s led government through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, on Thursday, March 11, urged Nigerians to be confident in the nation’s vaccine programme, noting that the country never received any batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine with a suspected side effect.

Recall that the Federal Government had launched the COVID-19 vaccination exercise in the country on Friday, March 5, 2021.

Also speaking after her vaccination on Thursday in Abuja, the NAFDAC DG noted that the agency thoroughly went through the application dossier of the vaccine before it was approved to be administered on Nigerians.

Adeyeye said “When we got the dossier or the application package of the vaccine, we went through it line by line, but before we got the application itself, we went through other assessments.

“I am talking about their assessment report so that we are prepared and guided when we start our own and that was exactly what happened.

“We conclude based on quality, safety and efficacy because we have to depend on the report, this particular AstraZeneca vaccine, over 20, 000 people were involved in phase three of the report.”

While insisting that the effectiveness of the vaccine outweigh the risk, she added that there was no medicine without its side effect.

The director-general said that from all indications of quality and efficacy, the benefit of AstraZeneca vaccine outweighs the risk and the side effect.

She said that the agency also believed in herbal medicine, but it must be backed with research before such could be approved.