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New Covid-19 drugs will not replace vaccines - Scientists
Executive Director of UVRI, Prof Pontiano Kaleebu. PHOTO/COURTESY
What you need to know:
- In a related development, Prof Kaleebu is coordinating a three-year project that aims at increasing participation of women in medical research.
The head of Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), Prof Pontiano Kaleebu, has said the newly-developed and approved Covid-19 drugs will not replace the vaccines because they serve different purposes.
“They [the Covid-19 drugs] are not replacing the vaccine because we don’t have a drug that completely kills the virus. Many of the drugs help in other ways but they are helpful to reduce death and severity of the disease,” he said during an interview with Daily Monitor at the weekend.
This comes 10 days after the United Kingdom announced that it had approved the use of new Covid-19 tablet – molnupiravir, which reportedly cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death by about half.
The tablet, which is given within five days of the onset of Covid-19 symptoms, works by interfering with the system the coronavirus uses to make copies of itself.
The drug is developed by the US drug companies Merck, Sharp and Dohme (MSD) and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. Uganda has been using drugs developed in foreign countries to treat Covid-19, but some locally-developed remedies are also in use.
In a related development, Prof Kaleebu is coordinating a three-year project that aims at increasing participation of women in medical research.
The €5m (Shs20b) worth project dubbed ‘Eastern Africa Consortium for Clinical Research (EACCR3) seeks to support at least five female scientists to get PhDs in different universities and train junior female researchers.
Prof Kaleebu said the project is being undertaken in six countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda with funding from the European Union.
Speaking during the launch of the project at UVRI headquarters in Entebbe last week, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, the 1st Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of East African Community Affairs, applauded the project management team for the PhD offers.
She called for increased collaboration among researchers and institutions in the region to find solutions to burdening diseases.
“I hope that you [project management team] can do more. You [Prof Kaleebu] have worked with female scientists and they are really brilliant. Give them more opportunity and they can go as high as they can go,” she said.
