Nigeria Spurns WHO, To Continue Chloroquine Trial

By Emmanuel Aziken

Nigeria will not heed the World Health Organisation, WHO resolve to stop further test on chloroquine as a therapy to COVID-19, the director-general of the National Agency for Foods and Drugs Administration and Control, Prof. Moji Adeyeye has said.

She spoke on Tuesday within hours of the WHO communiqué to temporarily disregard clinical tests on chloroquine as an anti-COVID-19 therapy.

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had on Monday afternoon said the WHO would temporarily suspend the hydroxychloroquine arm of its Solidarity Trial following trials that it did not add any medical benefit.

The research was published in the medical journal, Lancet.

“Nigeria will continue with the testing of chloroquine, that is my understanding for now,” Prof. Adeyeye said in an interview on Tuesday.

According to her “there are some clinical evidence that it has worked in some cases in Nigeria.”

She quoted remarks by Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi, Dr. Doyin Okupe and Dr. Raymond Dokpesi who she said claimed they were treated with the anti-malarial drug.

Prof. Adeyeye who spoke on a TVC interview said the differences in response to chloroquine therapy in Nigeria and other western countries where it apparently did not work may be a result of genetics.

“Our own genetic make up may have determined how we are reacting and that is what the clinical trials will prove. The data will show for itself.”

“The anti malarial turned their positive to negative, they went in positive and came out negative,” she said of the response of Governor Mohammed, Dr. Okupe and Dr. Dokpesi.

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