1. On 9th of April 2020 sir , your agency granted Conditional emergency use approval of medical devices for COVID 19 like antigen and antibody kits , PPEs, etc to importers and manufacturers.
This , according NAFDAC boss was to improve access to healthcare commodities that have the potential to impact positively on Public Health outcomes . As at today 13 April 2020 Nigeria has ramped up her daily testing capacity from a few hundred to 1500 tests per day ,
2. In the same vein NAFDAC can consider granting accelerated approval for mass imports and the use of Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine for usage in treating COVID 19 in the country .
We all know that there is an urgent need for an effective treatment to treat symptomatic patients and also to decrease the duration of Virus carriage in order to limit transmissions in the community.
3. The strategy to fight this novel virus has to look in this direction as it has become obvious that while we hope for a vaccine soon , it would take few more months if not years to materialize.
More so evidence abound that CQ and its outer derivative HCQ improves remarkably within a few days both viral load and clinical symptoms of SARS CoV 2 .
4. It’s on record that American FDA on 28th March 2020 granted Emergency Use Authorizations for both CQ and HCQ under off-label use of drugs program , this was after it identified them as a possible treatment for COVID 19.
President Trump promptly requested from the largest manufacturers of the drugs , India for 3 Million doses which has been delivered today 13/04/2020. India has also ramped up it’s production targeting to produce 1 billion doses after it approved temporary export waiver
Dutch center for disease control on a public statement on it’s website also suggested the use of CQ in those suffering COVID 19 infection admitted into ICU.
http://5.In  an Open Label Non Randomized Trial in Marseille France , Gantret et al. found that HCQ alone and HCQ + Azithromycin was highly and significantly effective in clearing viral nasopharyngeal carriage in 3 to 6 days in COVID 19 patients compared to control
6. Recently too , Chinese researchers found that CQ and HCQ inhibit the virus in vitro with HCQ more potent . HCQ which has safer dose-dependent toxicity profile allows using higher clinical doses with lesser side effects .
7. French , Indian and South Korean researchers and several clinical trials around the world have all arrived on similar outcomes about the high efficacy of CQ and HCQ as potential and safe treatment options for COVID 19 and have all commenced the usage .
7. I am therefore compelled to make a passionate plea for NAFDAC to consider towing this line by approving the importation and usage of these drugs at least on compassionate grounds for the curtailing of the spread of this pandemic .
Nigeria also has a long history of their usage and most healthcare personnel here are quite familiar with the drugs which were widely used in the past for the treatment of malaria .

Best Regards
Mcginger Ibeneme MBBS
Rock Palace
Akwunubi, Enugu
Nigeria
You can follow @mcginger22.
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