MPs must apologise for Ebola comments - Prof. Alex Dodoo

A member of the scientific community has asked parliamentarians to apologise to Ghanaians for their incorrect comments on the Ebola vaccine trial intended to be undertaken in the Volta Region but which has now been suspended.

According to Professor Alex Dodoo of the School of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Ghana, Legon, a lot of the statements made by Members of Parliament (MPs) last Wednesday about the proposed Ebola vaccine trial were misleading and unfounded.

Prof. Dodoo said this in an interview in Accra Thursday.

The Minister of Health, Mr Alex Segbefia, last Wednesday suspended the proposed Ebola vaccine trial scheduled to take place in Hohoe in the Volta Region.

The move was occasioned by the need for further consultations in view of concerns raised by people against the proposed trial.
Parliament, after debating the issue last Wednesday, also called for the suspension of the trial and summoned the Minister of Health to appear before it.

Prof. Dodoo said it was a shame that MPs were asking fundamental questions on the floor of the House such as whether the trial had been performed on mice and chimpanzee when the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health could have easily obtained more clarity on the issue from the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), which has been mandated to undertake such trials.

He said if this initial test had not been done, the trial would not have been authorised to reach its current stage where it was to be tested on humans.

Act 851

He said Parliament, which “complained violently about the trial”, was the very body which passed the Food and Drugs Act under the Public Health Act, 2012, (Act 851) to mandate the FDA to undertake such trials in the country.

He said he was shocked that these same MPs were now usurping the powers of statutory institutions.

In 2012, the Public Health Act 2012 was passed. Section 166 of the Act defines clinical trial as an “investigation consisting of a particular description by, or under the direction of a medical practitioner, dentist or veterinary surgeon to the patient or animal where there is evidence that a medicine, medical device or procedure or herbal medicine of that description has effects which may be beneficial to and safe to the patient or animal, and the medicine, medical device or procedure or herbal medicine is for the purpose of ascertaining beneficial or harmful effects”

Ghana misses opportunity

He said Ghana had missed an international opportunity to partake in an Ebola vaccine trial after the Minister of Health, Mr Alex Segbefia, suspended the proposed process last Wednesday.

“Ghana’s image and ability to develop would be damaged because no pharmaceutical company will come to the country as it appears that our laws are arbitrarily applied,” he regretted.

According to Prof. Dodoo, it was sad that an authority which had been mandated by the country’s laws could be prevented from doing its work.

‘Vaccine will not cause Ebola’

Prof. Dodoo, who is also the Chair of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Vaccine Safety Initiative, dismissed fears that the trial would bring Ebola into the country and said the trial was only to see if the vaccine was safe.

He said Ghana was supposed to participate in the clinical trial together with Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, adding that the trial would help the countries involved to develop their own infrastructure for any future outbreak of Ebola.

“When Ghana was hit with the H1N1, we begged other countries for vaccines,” Prof Dodoo said.

Presently, the country does not have the capacity to develop any vaccine and we need the ability and infrastructure to do that,” he emphasised.

Ebola trial in Australia

An Ebola trial, he said, was currently going on in Australia although the country was very far away from countries which had been hit by the virus but because they knew the worth of undertaking such a trial, they were doing so.

Prof. Dodoo said he was in no way involved in the trial but felt sad about the reactions that greeted the initiative, adding that “if the trial had not met international standards, it would not have got this far”.

In Parliament last Wednesday, he said, there were serious regrettable statements that were made and needed to be retracted.

He said the FDA had been involved in more than 50 clinical trials and it appeared the reaction of Parliament to the proposed trial was undermining the work of the authority and scientists in the country.

Community agitation

Prof. Dodoo, who is also the Chairman of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmacovigilance in Ghana, said the community in which the trial was to be undertaken had the right to agitate because the residents were yet to be educated on the process.