Sokoto varsity researchers submit COVID 19 vaccine for preclinical trials in Nigeria

Researchers at the Usman Danfodio University Sokoto (UDUS) have submitted a COVID 19 vaccine candidate for preclinical trials in Nigeria.

UDUS is among the institutions engaged by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) under its vaccine development mega-research project to produce COVID vaccines within 18 months.

It is understood that the institution was tasked with designing a DNA vaccine candidate.

Other institutions are the University of Jos (Unijos), National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), Nigeria Medical Research Institute (NMRI), and the National Research Institute for Chemical Technology (NARICT), Zaria.

Lawal Bilbis, UDUS vice-chancellor, presented the vaccine candidate to Sonny Echono, executive secretary of TETFund, on Monday.

Bilbis said despite the challenges encountered, the vaccine candidate was produced within 11 months of the receipt of the first tranche of the TETFund grant.

He said the feat demonstrates the ability of indigenous scientists to solve problems using home-grown resources.

“The milestone portrays our expertise in the application of state-of-the-art technologies to rapidly develop vaccine candidates against any emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases in Nigeria,” he said.

“Let me at this juncture inform the executive secretary that through the support of TETFund, researchers in this university have been able to work on many other high-impact projects that are already yielding promising results.

“As I speak, we have successfully designed and constructed a recombinant DNA vaccine targeting all the lineages of Lassa virus circulating in Nigeria, using a TETFund national research fund (NRF) grant.

“Additionally, TETFund COVID-19 special intervention research grant has supported our study on the innovative approach to rapidly identify potential therapeutics for COVID-19.

“The study identified seven orthodox medicines for repurposing and two herbal medicines with significant inhibitory activities against the virus that causes COVID-19.

“Indeed, there are many more TETFund-supported projects, too numerous to mention, which are helping our researchers to showcase their talents and skills, while at the same time, assisting to solve the nation’s problems. We remain extremely grateful to TETFund for its support.”

In his remarks, Echono commended the efforts and output of the institution in research and development.

He called on Nigerian researchers not to relent in delivering homemade COVID vaccines.

The research project is one out of four projects supported by TETFund at a total sum of N1.2 billion.

He said the aim of the project is to “strengthen collaborative research by promoting decentralised cooperation involving clusters of researchers from different institutions to consolidate problem-solving research and promote innovation in Nigeria”.