September 30, (THEWILL) – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has appointed a Nigerian Professor of Virology and former Vice-chancellor of the Redeemer’s University, Ede, Oyewale Tomori, as a member of its Technical Advisory Group on the COVID-19 vaccine.
The WHO, in a statement on Wednesday, said the Technical Advisory Group, is an independent group of experts who will periodically review the evidence and analyse the implications of emerging variants of concerns on the performance of COVID-19 vaccines.
It explained that “the group is to make recommendations to WHO on the methods to assess the impact of the variants of concerns on vaccines; provide interpretation of available evidence on the effect of variants of concerns on vaccines, including but not limited to vaccine effectiveness and recommend to WHO, for each COVID-19 vaccine platform, adaptations (if any) needed so that vaccines continue to safely provide WHO-recommended levels of protection against variants of concerns.”
According to the statement, other members of the Technical Advisory Group are Dr Supamit Chunsuttiwat, as an advisor, Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health Thailand; Cheryl Cohen, a professor in epidemiology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; Professor Thomas Fleming, a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the WHO Solidarity COVID-19 Vaccines Trial; David Goldblatt, a Professor of Vaccinology and Immunology and Dr Ziad Memish, a Senior Infectious Disease Consultant.
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