The US embassy in Nigeria on Monday celebrated a Nigerian-born researcher Onyema Ogbuagbu for his role in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Ogbuagbu is part of a team of researchers for Pfizer which jointly announced with BioNTech that a vaccine against COVID-19 had been developed.
The vaccine has been tested on 43,500 people in six countries with no safety concerns raised.
Tweeting on Monday, the US embassy commended Ogbuagbu for helping “the drug company Pfizer develop the first effective COVID-19 vaccine in the United States.”
“Nigerians contribute to the world in so many ways. Our hats off to Dr. Onyema Ogbuagbu at Yale who helped develop a COVID-19 vaccine,” the embassy said.
Ogbuagu is one of the twin sons of a former vice-chancellor of Abia State University Chibuzo Ogbuagu and a professor of sociology Stella Ogbuagu who was best graduating student of the 1974 class at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). His twin brother is an engineer.
He studied medicine at the University of Calabar, Cross River in 2003. After graduation, he interned at the Ebonyi State University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, before proceeding to the US.
