US Hails Nigerian Doctor Who Helped Develop America’s 1st COVID-19 Vaccine

The United States Embassy in Nigeria has hailed Onyema Ogbuagu, a Nigerian doctor who helped in the development of the first effective COVID-19 vaccine in America.

Dr Ogbuagu is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Yale School of Medicine.

American drug manufacturing giant, Pfizer, announced earlier in November 2020 that data from its vaccine shows an efficacy rate higher than 90%, the first reported breakthrough in the U.S.

Ogbuagu, an Associate Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Yale School of Medicine, is one of those leading the Pfizer trial.

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“Nigerians contribute to the world in so many ways.

“Our hats off to Dr Onyema Ogbuagbu at Yale who helped develop a COVID-19 vaccine!” the U.S. Embassy said in a Twitter post on Monday, November 23.

In the final results published after Pfizer’s initial announcement, the vaccine was found to have 95% efficacy.

Speaking during an interview after the initial announcement, Ogbuagu said a lot of work still needs to be done to reassure people that the vaccine is safe.

“This could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic,” he said.

Pfizer and BioNTech, joint developers of the vaccine, plan to apply for emergency approval to use the vaccine by the end of November.

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They are also projecting to be able to supply 50 million doses by the end of 2020 and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.

Moderna, another American biotechnology company, has similarly announced that its own vaccine is 94.5% effective after a trial involving 30,000 people.

There are over 200 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed across the world.

Since it was detected in China in December 2019, COVID-19 has infected over 59 million people globally, killing over 1.3 million.