Post date: Aug 12, 2011 4:56:6 PM
Pfizer starts payouts to compensate alleged victims of a controversial 1996 clinical drugs trials in Nigeria, during which 11 children died in disputed circumstances.
KANO, NIGERIA (AUGUST 11, 2011) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) REUTERS - The parents of four Nigerian children who died during a 1996 meningitis outbreak in a case involving accusations of wrongful testing against Pfizer Inc. each collected cheques for 175,000 dollars (USD) on Thursday (August 11).
The compensation was the first given out by The Healthcare/Meningitis Trust Fund, which was set up after
Pfizer reached a 75- million-dollar (USD) settlement in 2009 with the government of Kano state, a region in northern Nigeria, to compensate victims.The decision over who is compensated and for how much is being managed by an independent board of trustees in Kano, not by the government or Pfizer, the company has said.
Speaking at a meeting for relatives of the victims on Thursday, a member of the board of trustees, Prosper Igboeli, said several measures were being taken.
"One, reimburse the Kano state government for all its legal expenses; two, the establishment of the healthcare related programme trust board, to oversee the concentration of a modern diagnostics and disease control centre in Kano; the establishment of the Healthcare and Meningitis Trust Board (Fund) to identified the actual participants of the 1996 clinical trials and recommend to Pfizer Incorporated the amount of compensation to be paid to the participants," Igboeli said.
The Trust said the payouts had begun following the release of the DNA tests earlier conducted on 353 out of the 548 people who had applied for compensation.
"Basically, there is no problem between Pfizer and the Kano State government anymore, since they have settled 2009. Basically what the Trust is doing... you know, we are an independent board appointed by both Pfizer and Kano state to execute the agreement signed by them," said David Odiwo, Executive Secretary of the Trust Fund.
He said further claims are expected with the results of more DNA tests.
In the Pfizer trials in Kano in 1996, the antibiotic Trovafloxacin, or Trovan, was administered to hundreds of children infected by meningitis.
The world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company has argued that meningitis and not its antibiotic led to the deaths of 11 children and harm to dozens of others in the 200-patient trial.
A spokesman for Pfizer said the company was pleased that the first four qualified claimants had received compensation.
Pfizer said in February it had settled all outstanding lawsuits involving accusations that it tested the experimental antibiotic Trovan on children.