While scientists in pharmaceutical laboratories spearhead the development of hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccines by technological means, the worldwide search for a safe, effective, and less expensive way to fight the spread of HBV has led, in at least one instance, to "home production" of a protective immunization medium. Its developer says the method is reproducible and can be used on a large scale in any country where conditions similar to those in his native Nigeria prevail.
This Nigerian physician, Abdulsalami Nasidi, MD, and colleagues have developed a simplified five-step method for production of plasma-derived HBV vaccine. Supported by the National Institute for Medical Research of Nigeria in Lagos—where he is director of the newly established hepatitis laboratory—Nasidi began his project because, he says: "Vaccines developed by drug companies are too expensive for us."
In an interview with JAMA MEDICAL NEWS in San Francisco at the recent International Symposium on