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International HIV/AIDS experts who visited Nigeria recently commended the government’s strategy of putting in place a plan to develop vaccines against HIV, the Panafrican News Agency (PANA) reported on Wednesday.
The experts attended a workshop organised by Nigeria’s National Action Committee which stressed the need for the government to support research into and the development of vaccines to fight the virus by establishing a National Vaccine Policy and Strategic Plan, PANA said.
“It’s critical that we don’t sit and wait for when a vaccine is developed in the North and then comes to the South,” PANA quoted Saladin Osmanov, a vaccine specialist with UNAIDS, as saying. “We should become active participants ... (so that) in the end, the vaccine that is developed is appropriate, suitable and affordable for use in developing countries.”
HIV prevalence among Nigeria’s 110 million people is estimated at 5 percent.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions