Nigerian-American Leading Pfizer Researcher Describes Vaccine As Final Solution

Onyema Ogbuagu, a Nigerian-American researcher and medical doctor, said the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine “will be the final nail in the coffin” for the virus that has killed over 1.6 million people worldwide.

Ogbuagu stated this on Saturday, at a virtual series on the theme, ‘COVID-19: Vaccine, Hesitancy, Myths and Reality’, organised by the Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) in partnership with Ngex.

He also dismissed concerns that the vaccine would alter deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

Pfizer and BioNTech had announced that the first vaccine they developed against COVID-19 could prevent more than 90 percent of people from getting infected.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the vaccine for public use, adding that the authorisation is a “significant milestone” in the pandemic.

“I think that issue of vaccine hesitancy is not new. It’s been an issue that has played us for a long time. In fact, I think the World Health Organisation (WHO) at some point had listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the greatest threats to global health,” he said.

“I think if we just think about historically the role that vaccine has played, with either eradicating diseases, near eradicating diseases and even the year-to-year advantages, there have always been individuals that have been concerned about what vaccines are and there are a lot of misconceptions around the harms or the potential harms vaccine caused.

“Specifically, for COVID-19 vaccines, I think that one of the concerns has been about the accelerated process or timelines. I want to flag vaccine hesitancy as a serious threat for us. The punchline I would say is that thinking about COVID-19, vaccine would be one of the approaches that really hosts the greatest promise.