Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, has provided an insight into the composition of COVID-19 vaccines.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday in Abuja, Shuaib said there were several COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
He said while some had been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organisation, others are still in various phases of clinical trials for possible approval.
According to him, COVID-19 vaccine candidates are of various categories based on their mechanism of action such as the inactivated or weakened virus vaccines.
He explained that in formulating the COVID-19 vaccine, an inactivated or weakened virus is used so it does not cause disease, but generates an immune response.
He also said there are protein-based vaccines, which use harmless fragments of proteins or protein shells that mimic the COVID-19 virus to safely generate an immune response.
He added that the viral vector vaccines used a virus that had been genetically engineered so that it could not cause a disease but would produce coronavirus proteins to safely generate an immune response.
He added that the Ribonucleic Acid and Deoxyribonucleic Acid vaccines employ cutting-edge approach that uses genetically engineered RNA or DNA to generate a protein that safely prompts an immune response.
NAN reports that 1.09 million people in Nigeria have been administered the first dose of the Astrazeneca vaccine.
(NAN)
