NAFDAC, Oxford Partner on £3.7m Project to Strengthen Vaccine Safety

Nigeria is partnering with the University of Oxford and other international institutions on a £3.7 million research project aimed at strengthening the detection of degraded and falsified vaccines before they reach patients.

The three-year initiative, funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), brings together the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Oxford’s Medicine Quality Research Group, Obafemi Awolowo University, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the University of East London and the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Thailand.

The consortium will develop and evaluate technologies capable of identifying vaccines that have been compromised or falsified within supply chains. It will also examine approaches to vaccine lot-release testing and assess the cost-effectiveness of emerging screening technologies.

NAFDAC Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said the partnership would strengthen the agency’s efforts to protect public health and improve confidence in the safety, quality and effectiveness of vaccines.

“This initiative aligns with NAFDAC’s commitment to protecting public health while reinforcing confidence in the safety, quality and effectiveness of vaccines,” Adeyeye said.

The research builds on the Vaccine Identity Evaluation (VIE) Consortium, established during the COVID-19 pandemic to address the challenge of falsified vaccines and strengthen vaccine quality assurance.

Previous Oxford-led research under the consortium explored advanced technologies for identifying compromised vaccines within supply chains. The new phase will further develop those technologies and assess their performance under conditions that reflect routine vaccine distribution systems in Nigeria.

Under the project, NAFDAC will support surveillance activities, generate evidence to inform regulatory decisions and contribute to efforts to strengthen vaccine quality assurance within Nigeria’s immunisation system.

The project will also examine health economics to determine which monitoring and screening approaches can provide effective vaccine surveillance at sustainable cost.

Researchers expect the findings to contribute to vaccine quality assurance policies in Nigeria and other low- and middle-income countries, particularly by strengthening supply-chain monitoring, regulatory oversight and the early detection of compromised vaccines.

The initiative is also expected to support efforts to maintain public confidence in immunisation programmes by reducing the risk of falsified or degraded vaccines entering the healthcare system.