Court lifts ban on Abalaka’s HIV vaccines
Jeremiah Abalaka, who made fame with the claim that he had discovered a vaccine for HIV, has won a reprieve for his vaccine.
A Federal High Court presided over by Justice Binta Nyako, which sat in Makurdi, Benue State on Friday lifted NAFDAC’s ban on the use of Abalaka’s patented vaccines for the treatment of HIV.
The Abuja medical practitioner had sought court’s help for his patented vaccine, which claimed to have discovered in 1999.
The court also restrained the Federal Government and NAFDAC from further interfering with the use of the vaccines.
Abalaka had gone to the court to challenge NAFDAC for banning him from using the vaccines for the treatment and prevention of HIV.
Joined in the suit were the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Attorney General of the Federation.
Testifying before the court, Abalaka, who also called three witnesses, said he discovered a recipe to turn the virus in the infected blood of HIV infected person into both preventive and curative vaccines.
He said he applied for the patent of the discovery and was granted on July 22, 1999.
He said: “I wrote to health institutions and authorities in Nigeria to draw their attention to the discovery to collaborate with me to test and confirm the breakthrough.
“This was in order to bring succour to sufferers of HIV but the letters were ignored.”
Abalaka said the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development took him up on the discovery and confirmed the potency of the drugs.
“This was done through a report on February 28, 2000, but the Federal Government discontinued further collaboration with me and the institute,” he said.
He disclosed that various agencies of the Federal Government, including its hospitals, had purchased the vaccines from him and applied them on their own patients who had HIV and many were cured.
“When the Federal Government discovered that the vaccines were potent, it sent agents to me with the sum of N10 million for the breakthrough to be announced in Atlanta Georgia, USA, but I refused,” Abalaka had alleged.
Abalaka said his vaccines were then banned from being used for the treatment of HIV epidemic in Nigeria by NAFDAC.
His counsel, Paul Omale, had urged the court to determine whether the defendants had justified their banning the vaccines and “sentence about 3.5 million Nigerians to death” while there was effective and safe vaccines to cure them.
Omale further urged the court to determine whether the defendants had shown any harmful side effect of the vaccines.
Counsel to the defendants, Uche Ezekwesili, however, abandoned their plea as he could not call witnesses to justify the ban.
Delivering judgment, Justice Nyako said since there was no cure yet for HIV, it was only fair for the defendants to have allowed the plaintiff to use the vaccines on infected persons with their consent.
The court therefore granted the plaintiff’s plea that the vaccine be unbanned.
