The Deputy Senate majority Leader, Senator Ajayi Boroffice, has decried the inability of Nigeria to contribute to global effort in research to develop vaccine against the recent pandemic.
The situation he said exposed the weakness of Nigeria’s health sector, adding that, “it is obvious that necessary steps must be taken to remedy this very critical situation.”
While other countries were engaged in critical academic research to produce the vaccine to tackle the pandemic, Nigeria was waiting in the wings to import the vaccine.
Boroffice spoke while supporting the bill seeking to establish the Federal University of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Iyin Ekiti.
According to him, the insufficient number of teaching hospitals across the country has left graduates of the medical sciences with no option but to seek internship in other countries such as Ghana.
“On the other hand, Mr. President, it is indeed unfortunate that when our graduates from the medical school, when they graduate, they cannot have the opportunity of internship in the country, which is always available in the tertiary institution.
“And, there’s a great movement in droves of our young medical graduates to other countries like Ghana to seek internship experience. So, I’m sure that the establishment of this university teaching hospital will greatly help in reducing this problem.
“Mr. President, we will also notice that in this recent pandemic, the discovery of the vaccine is usually in cooperation between the pharmaceutical companies and teaching hospitals. Whether you’re talking of Pfizer or AstraZeneca, we have not been able to make any contribution to the development of vaccines.
“I’m sure when we have teaching hospitals of very high quality, where the research is at cutting-edge, we would be able to make our contribution to the development of medical services globally.”
This is just as the bill seeking to establish the Federal University of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Iyin Ekiti, scaled second reading in the Senate.
