By Azoma Chikwe

There are several diseases like diphtheria, whooping cough (pertussis), measles, mumps, yellow fever, small pox and German measles (rubella) that are unfamiliar to many these days. However, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, these illnesses struck hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and among these most were children. These illnesses killed tens of thousands of people. Today these diseases are all but forgotten. This change has happened largely because of vaccines.
History
The term ‘’vaccine’’ was derived from the Edward Jenner’s 1796 use of the term ‘’cow pox’’ (Latin ‘’variolæ vaccinæ’’, adapted from the Latin ‘’vaccīn-us’’, from ‘’vacca’’ cow). He was the pioneer of using cow pox vaccines to prevent small pox infections.
When an individual is vaccinated against a disease or an infection, say Diphtheria, his or her immune system is prepared to fight the infection. Once vaccinated when the person is exposed to the bacterium that causes it, the body gears up to fight off the infection. This whole battle of the immune system with the invading bacterium is so rapid that most people do not observe or feel the infection at all.
Vaccines take advantage of the body’s natural ability to learn how to eliminate almost any disease-causing germ, or microbe, that attacks it. Once vaccinated the body “remembers” how to protect itself from the microbes it has encountered before.
What vaccines are made of
Consultant Physician, Dr Mandal Ananya, said a vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. Traditional vaccines contain either parts of microbes or whole microbes that have been killed or weakened so that they don’t cause disease.
When a person is inoculated with these preparations, the immune system confronts these harmless versions of the germs. The immune system quickly clears them from the body.In turn the body remembers the germs so that later in life when it encounters the real live virulent germs it may be able to fight it off with the retained memory against the particular germ.
Some vaccines are prophylactic and are used to prevent or ameliorate the effects of a future infection by any natural or “wild” pathogen. Some vaccines however may also be therapeutic for example cancer vaccines that are being developed against cancer.
Benefits
Once a person’s immune system is trained to resist a disease, the person becomes immune to it. Before vaccines, the only way to become immune to a disease was to actually get it and, with luck, survive it. This type of immunity against an illness is called naturally acquired immunity, wherein the person has to suffer the symptoms of the disease and also risk the complications, which can be quite serious or even deadly. In addition, if the disease is contagious it may also be passed on to family members, friends, or others who come into contact.
Vaccines which provide artificially acquired immunity, are a much safer way to become immune. Vaccines can prevent a disease from occurring in the first place and also decrease the risk of complications and risk of transmission. It is much cheaper to prevent a disease than to treat it.
Until recently, most vaccines were aimed at babies and children alone. Now more and more vaccines are developed for use among elderly, pregnant mothers, adolescents, travellers and adults in a population. In addition, vaccines are increasingly being administered in form of combination of more than one component. Vaccinations of animals are being used both to prevent their contracting diseases and to prevent transmission of disease to humans.
Local production
Consultant Surgeon, Dr Emmanuel Enabulele, noted that it is important to develop local capacity for certain types of products that require cuttingedge science, vaccines is one of them. According to him, “If there is anything in health in the past few years that have impacted so much on public health, it is vaccination. That is why we should work hard to have local production, it will protect the working population, reduce the cost of health care and improve the quality of life of the people. It is a very important subject, but unfortunately in Africa we are dependent on advanced countries of the world for our vaccine supply.
“What happens when it does not come? You know what happened in this country ,the issue of lassa fever outbreak, a lot of people died, during ebola outbreak, bodies of dead people littered the street. Meningitis was the latest one in Nigeria , the death toll stands at over a thousand people. These are people that could be managed and they would have survived. Disease out break could happen, but you don’t lose more than 10 or 20 people, you take action and contain it. All these happened because we don’t produce vaccines. We need to take management of the health of our people seriously. It is a shame. We need to have vaccines made locally. Thats why government realised that it is a health security issue. It is not about reducing the cost of vaccines, it is a health security issue. It is about ensuring that vaccines are available for Nigeria on sustainable basis when they need it.
“So, that’s why one of the best decisions this government has taken is to ratifying the joint vebture agreement between her and May and Baker for the local production of vaccines, It is quite commendable. I commend the President, Muhammed Buhari, the minister of health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, and all the health ministers before him, since 2005. I could say they all the ministers of health supported it, infact fought for it. But because of bureaucracy and resistance it never saw the light of the day. It happened that Isaac Adewole was the man in office when it happened. I liked the way he went for it , I give him credit the way he fought it. It is something to be happy about. The next levei is to make it happen.
“You can ratify agreement, sign agreement and dump it somewhere, so we have to make it happen. I am happy the way the minister of health is going about to ensure it happens. He assured that every measure will be taken to activate the agreement. With this development,we hope in the next 48 months, that is two years, we will start local production of vaccines.
Resistance
“You know we are up against a lot resistance. There are people who benefit from the status quo today. Nigeria imports 100 per cent of its vaccine from abroad through UNICEF. Those people who benefit from this current situation will feel threatened. With the ratifying of the agreement with government to produce biovaccines,then suddenly within two years, we produce all the vaccines Nigeria needs, that will not happen, not even in ten years. There is no reason anybody should be threatened.But, they wll feel threatened. And they will try to fight it.But,as Nigerians, we need to understand that what happening is the best for us. I cannot assure you that it is going to be a smooth sail, it is going to be tough. All I hear from those interested groups is that it is not possible, Nigeria cannot do it.
“Some will say it will take ten years to manufacture, some will say it will take five years, that Nigeria cannot do it. But we can do it. That is what they said when China started doing their vaccines , but China said no, we will do our vaccines, use it on our children, we will not go to anybody to certify it, as far as it will not kill our children, we will do it and they started in 1999 doing their vaccines, immunising their children, today they are going for WHO prequalification. Same thing with India, they have technology. So, it is doable. But we need to believe as a country we can do it, And we going to need the support of every Nigeran.
“Apart from the the fact that we are going to acquire the technology. It will ensure that the vaccines are available on a sustainable basis. We can decide to forget every other product and face vaccine production, when there is disease outbreak. You can’t do that if you are importing. You cannot tell that to a factory in Europe, that you have meningitis outbreak, they should produce the vaccines only, they will tell you they have commitment for one year. So, people are going to fight this at various levels, some will even come from a very high level to advocate even at the highest level in Nigeria to try to block it. I am very happy that the current Nigerian government believe that it should be Nigeria first in everything.”
Agreement
Talking about the agreement with the federal government, Managing Director, May and Baker, Mr Nnamdi Okafor, said, “we are yet to sign off the agreement, we have to put some final touches here and there before we sign off. But , basically, it is a joint venture agreement where May and Baker has 51 per cent equity holding , federal government of Nigeria has 49 per cent holding. May and Baker is going to provide management. The company, Biovaccines, will be managd as a private venture. It is not going to be government business. Government will have no influence in the day-to-day running of the company. May and Baker is going to produce the Chief Executive Officer of the company, May and Baker will provide technology and management. Government will provide the chairman of the board, you know in the private sector, the role of the board is supervisory, to provide direction, they don’t run the business. We intend to get a thorough bred expert in vaccines manufacturing to run the company. The person must have enough experience and understood how such a company is run. We intend to run it as a business. That’s why efforts that Nigeria made in the past failed.
“We were manufacturing vaccines, government was the one doing it at the Federal Vaccine Production Laboratory, Yaba, since 1948 to 1991, we couldn’t go far before it was shut down. By the time they decided to take it as a business, which is a very bold decision, and they targeted manufacturing quality vaccines that will meet Nigeria’s need for 15 years, that was the target, they couldn’t even do the upgrading because things were just tight, it was shut down. Now government is going to hands off. Nobody is saying government is going to run the company, no, government is not going to run it. But, government is going to have interest in it because it is a sensitive area for government.
“Apart from government asset, Federal Vaccine Production Lab., Yaba, buildings and so on that are there, government is not putting in any money in the project. May and Baker is bringing the cash. Ofcourse, a new company, Biovaccines, was constituted to run the company. We are going to source financing, even right from the equity provided by the owners of the business. They will run the company and run it in a manner that will ensure that the business will succeed.
“This agreement is not creating any monopoly, it is not an exclusive agreement, what I mean by that is, it does not in any way say that only May and Baker will supply vaccines to the Federal government of Nigeria. So, other parties who are eligible still have a window to supply vaccines to government. And the condition for even Biovaccines to supply to government is that we would produce vaccines that meet the standards of the national regulatory authority which is National Agency for Food and Drug Administation and Control (NAFDAC) and the international regulatory agencies which is USADA and World Health Organisation(WHO). So, the quality must be certifiable , we must produce at a competitive price. So, government is not going to buy at a competitive price, government is not going to buy at any price, she will buy at a competitive price subject of course to any domestic preference as applicable to Public Private Act. Because we have heard some insinuations that government has given May and Baker monopoly to supply vaccines at their price and whatever they supply, that is not it.
“For those who understand the pedigree of May and Baker, some will say why May and Baker? This thing started in 2004, government manufacturing facility shut down 1991. Between 1991 and 2004 nothing was being done there and nobody cared. So, May and Baker in 2003 or thereabout approached government to say this place has been lying fallow, because we have some affiliations with some vaccine companies abroad. We said this place has been lying fallow, why don’t we work with you to upgrade it and get it to begin to produce vaccines, that this country used to produce vaccines before and even export. In 2004, government got a bit serious with it and invited May and Baker and some interested parties to submit a proposal, we did and one or two other companies who were interested and May and Baker was picked. And then an Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2005 and got presidential approval, that was President Obasanjo, a board was constituted and in 2007 there was a joint venture agreement and the board took off until government started raising issues and government started to withdraw some of their board members, all their directors on the board.
“So, we have come a long way as a company. Between the time we took over assets of government in 2005 till today, we have maintained that assets, maintained all the animals in the place, maintained even the staff of Federal Vaccine Production lab, everything, bearing all the cost.That not withstanding, we have also been running some other costs just to try to ensure that we keep in touch with the development partners we had initially involved before government pulled out.
“We have to make new investments in a new location, the site where government was producing might have some issues in future. To build a new plant, you need to think ahead, if you want to expand, there should room for expansion without running into some regulatory issues. Because the place is highly residential built-up area, we might have some issues of expansion. So, we thought ahead , and bought some land in Ota where we can have more room to operate. So, May and Baker has made a lot of investments in pursueing this project for over 12 years.
“Looking at our background, we are the exclusive representatives of the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturers, Pastuer, infact, we were their agents in Nigeria for over forty years. We were distributing their vaccines, we are familiar with all the ethics of handling vaccines,
“Talking about current trends, as you are aware, we just built a WHO standard pharma manufacturing factory in Ota, it has been certified by WHO, we are going through the process of prequalifying our first product. So, in terms of good manufacturing practice(GMP), we have the latest skill to handle it, I do not see anybody in Nigeria who is better positioned to handle this type of sensitive project.
“So, basically it is something that is good for Nigerians, something we will be proud of in years to come.It will take sometime to even make profit, but for us it is not even about profit. We are not going into it because we want to make money tommorrow, profit will surely come. We have our pharma business we are focusing on for profit. We believe as the first company to introduce western medicine to Nigeria, we need to make some strides. Our aim is to ensure we are first to take Nigeria into the arena of biologicals, that is what is driving us, it is not profit.”