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COVID-19 treatment vaccine undergoing clinical trial in US, ready soon, says Iwu

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A cheery news and relief has come from an expert and professor of Pharmacognosy that the drug for the treatment of coronavirus will soon be ready.   “It will be ready as soon as the testing of the vaccine is complete,’’ Prof. Maurice Iwu,  the Chairman of the Imo State Taskforce on COVID-19, said on Wednesday.  We recalls that in February following the outbreak of the pandemic the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN)-trained professor had presented a plant-based patented treatment for COVID-19 to the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, and is currently being subjected to clinical trial in the United States of America.

Iwu, who took delivery of some COVID-19 preventive materials donated by Seplat Petroleum and Waltersmith Oil Ltd, told newsmen in Owerri: “There is a positive sign that it would soon be ready.   “The work on the drug we are developing is still going on. We are encouraged by the result we are getting. We are getting very positive signs.

“Luckily the drug is a safe one. It is drug already in use. We are re-purposing it for this particular purpose. So when we finished the studying and testing we are doing, I think the drug will come up on line very, very soon. ”   On the challenges COVID-19 poses to NAFDAC, Iwu said: “If the pandemic escalates, the NAFDAC will know what to do, like they did in USA to fast track the use of chloroquine.   “If we have a need NAFDAC will know what to do. Right now the product is in human use, what we are doing is to repurpose it for this particular event. ”

He said that the state government is doing everything humanly possible to prevent the virus from getting a foothold in the state.   “We have a vertical integration with the Federal Government whereby our ministry of health is working assiduously with the National Centre for Disease Control. We have equipment centre that is ready and we have configured isolation centres.

“There is no confirmed incident in the state, but that does not mean the fear is not there,” Iwu, a former chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said.  Iwu, according to Wikipedia, became Vice-President, Research and Development of Tom’s of Maine, a personal care manufacturing company, and member of the Board of Directors, Axxon Biopharm inc. He served on the Board of InterCEDD, Fund for integrated Rural Development and Traditional Medicine, and Center for Economic and Social Justice.

He was the United Nation’s Lead Consultant for the development of Nigeria’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. Iwu has published more than 100 research articles and is the author of four books. Iwu was President of the International Society of ethnobiology (1996–2002), member and ex-President of the Nigerian Society of Pharmacognosy, Member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Member of the International Society for Medicinal Plant Research.

The professor was the Executive Director, Bioresources Development and Conservation Program and a Senior Research Associate at the Division of Experimental Therapeutics of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

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