Meet Dr. Ogbuagu, An Igbo Man, Who Is One Of The Brains Behind The New Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine

By Seun Adeuyi

Dr. Onyema Eberechukwu Ogbuagu, an Igbo man is one of the brains behind the new Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

Dr. Ogbuagu, who is part of the discovery team, graduated from the University of Calabar College of Medical Sciences in 2003.

He works in New Haven, Computed Tomography (CT) and two other locations and specializes in Infectious Disease, Internal Medicine and Other Specialty.

Dr. Ogbuagu is also affiliated with Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital.

As coronavirus cases surge in the United States and elsewhere, with little relief in sight, the world got good news on last week Monday.

Pfizer and its partner, the German company, BioNTech, announced preliminary results that suggested their vaccine was more than 90 percent effective.

In July, Pfizer and BioNTech initiated a late-stage clinical trial on a coronavirus vaccine. Half of the people got the vaccine, while the other half got a placebo of salt water. The companies then waited for people to get sick to determine if the vaccine offered any protection.

So far, 94 participants out of nearly 44,000 have gotten sick with Covid-19. An independent board of experts looked at how many of those people got the vaccine, and how many got the placebo. That early analysis suggests the vaccine is over 90 percent effective.

So far Pfizer and BioNTech have reported no serious safety concerns from their vaccine. Before running the current large-scale study, the companies ran smaller clinical trials starting in May that were specifically designed to detect warning signs about the vaccine’s safety.

They tried out four versions of their vaccine and selected the one that produced the fewest cases of mild and moderate side effects, such as fever and fatigue.