• NMA, PSN task govt on U.S.
TO ascertain the veracity of their acclaimed breakthroughs, the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has inaugurated a committee of professors of medicine to probe all the HIV cure claims in the country.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) and the Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS) have called for a replication of the United States procedure in Nigeria through clinical trials to test whether very early therapy can control infection in others.
The NAFDAC's Director General, Dr. Paul Orhii, in an interview with The Guardian Thursday said the agency had inaugurated a committee of professors of medicine to verify all cure claims in Nigeria.
Orhii said: "What we have done is that we have formed a committee of professors of medicine in Nigeria to see what we can do. We are meeting next month to work out ways of doing clinical trials for all the cure claims in Nigeria. This is because if you allow everybody to make claims of cure for HIV we will be doing ourselves a lot of harm.
"If you claim that you have cure, we will find a doctor who has patients and re-evaluate it, and do a blinded trial so that the Intellectual Property Right (IPR) is protected. When we have finished the screening, we will then begin the approval process.
He added: "I do not want it to be said that it was during my tenure that somebody claimed to have found a cure for HIV, malaria, cancer, diabetes or any other disease and we did not verify it and lose the opportunity. Maybe later it will be said that we did not give the person a chance to prove the claims.
"I have decided we should examine these things and approve them if they are found useful. I have already held meetings with the committee of professors of medicine before the conference next month where all the people who have herbal concoction cure claims will be invited. With this their IPR is protected because most of them think that their work will be stolen."
President, NMA, Dr Osahon Enabulele, and his counterpart at the PSN, Olumide Akintayo, yesterday commended the team of U.S. researchers for their research efforts and finding, which undoubtedly opens a new vista in the global efforts to produce a cure for HIV/AIDS.
However, Enabulele canvassed the need for replication of similar studies in Nigeria and other parts of Africa (with use of similar factors employed in the 18 months treatment of the child).
He told The Guardian that in line with this objective, the NMA has directed its Research Committee as well as its HIV/AIDS Committee to deeply understudy the research finding with a view to replicating similar research studies in Nigeria, in collaboration with relevant research institutions, universities and NACA.
Enabulele said while NMA appreciated the need for replication of the research study, the association nevertheless consider the case of the Mississippi baby a great fillip to on-going researches to generate a cure for HIV/AIDS, and therefore expect the enthusiasm of researchers in Africa and Nigeria in particular where there is still an immense burden of HIV/AIDS, to be fired up.
He, therefore, called on governments at all levels, universities and research institutions and agencies, particularly NACA, to invest more in researches aimed at discovering a global cure for HIV/AIDS.
The NMA president further explained: "While we urge further research studies in Nigeria and other African countries, what is immediately obvious is that the current finding by the U.S. Research Team potentially offers, in the least, tremendous hope to Infants/Children afflicted with HIV/AIDS. Expectedly, this will help reduce Infant and Child Mortality and the global burden of HIV/AIDS. Truly, it will help accelerate progress towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly MDGs 4 and 6.
The Guardian