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Dr Jeremiah Abalaka, the man behind a controversial vaccine for HIV between 1999 and 2000, will only divulge recipe for his vaccine under a negotiated agreement, after a court ruled that federal government was wrong to ban it.
The Olusegin Obasanjo administration in 2000 suspended the use of all drugs or vaccines claimed to prevent or cure HIV/AIDS until proper guidelines for assessing and verifying the claims are approved.
A federal high court in Makurdi ruled there was no evidence that guidelines for assessment and verification had "been put in place 15 years on, and it does not appear that there is any in the offing," and decided the ban on Abalaka's vaccine "was done arbitrarily and thus illegal, null and void."
It also said Abalaka could only administer his vaccine to patients that have given their consent.
"Since the government is not doing anything to help them, it is only proper for the persons so infected to have a right to decide for themselves whether to use [Abalaka's] vaccine or not," the court said in its ruling November 13 last year.
The ruling comes nearly 15 years after Abalaka sued from federal government and the attorney general of the federation to stop the ban on his vaccine. National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control joined as defendants.
Abalaka stunned the international medical world with claims between 1999 and 2000 vaccine he developed using human blood could treat HIV, effectively turning a carrier serostatus to negative, or prevent a person from being infected.
He's famously claimed injecting himself with HIV-positive blood six times but remained negative.
He told journalists that the court ruling has opened "one more opportunity for our governments to make the necessary amends after 16 years of monumental, unpatriotic, unscientific, arbitrary, and now, illegal mishandling."
SOURCE: allafrica.com
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