BREAKTHROUGH: Dr. Abalaka’s HIV vaccine cleared for use

Remember Dr. Jeremiah Abalaka back in 1999? The Abuja-based medical doctor who discovered a vaccine for the dreaded HIV…but whose treatment was banned by NAFDAC and indeed the Federal Ministry of Health.

He is back in the news but this time victorious. The Federal High Court in Makurdi on Friday lifted NAFDAC’s ban on the use of his patented vaccines for the treatment of HIV. The court also restrained the Federal Government and NAFDAC from further interfering with the use of the vaccines.

Abalaka had gone to court to challenge NAFDAC for banning him from using the vaccines which he claimed was very potent. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Attorney General of the Federation were joined in the suit.

Punch reports that while testifying before the court presided over by Justice Binta Nyako, Abalaka said he devised a procedure for turning the virus in the blood of an HIV infected person into both preventive and curative vaccines.

According to him, He said he obtained a patent of the discovery on July 22, 1999.

His words: “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.”

He noted that the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development probed the discovery and confirmed the potency of the drugs.

He disclosed that various agencies of federal government, including its hospitals, had purchased the vaccines from him and applied them on their own HIV patients and many were cured.

The newspaper quotes him as alleging: “When the FG discovered that the vaccines were potent, it sent agents to me with the sum of N10million for the breakthrough to be announced in Atlanta Georgia, USA, but I refused”.

He added that his vaccines were then banned from being used for the treatment of HIV epidemic in Nigeria by NAFDAC.