Coronavirus: NAFDAC approves production of chloroquine for clinical trials

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved the production of Chloroquine for clinical trials in tackling COVID-19.

Director-General of the agency, Mojisola Adeyeye, made the announcement on Friday at the NAFDAC headquarters in Lagos.

She, however, pointed out that NAFDAC is not approving Chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19 but for clinical trials to find treatment for the virus.

“In the case of Chloroquine, it has been demonstrated in the literature and with clinical research which is still ongoing, that Chloroquine is superior to the Placebo.

“NAFDAC is not approving Chloroquine as a product that has can be used for Coronavirus because there is no submission to us for registration but because it is under clinical trials, NAFDAC approves medicines meant for clinical trials.

“Therefore the medicine is being approved just for the clinical trials,” Adeyeye said.

She, therefore, called on experts and researchers that are interested in doing a clinical trial on Chloroquine to approach approved outlets, adding that a drug company has been given an approval to produce chloroquine in batches

“Right now, we have asked one company to make a batch of Chloroquine for the purpose of clinical trial,” Adeyeye added.

The NAFDAC DG also urged Nigerians not to use Chloroquine as anti-malaria.

“Nobody should use chloroquine as anti-malaria because of the resistance that has been proven to develop in the past after the use of chloroquine in the population.”