Pfizer pays out to Nigerian families of meningitis drug trial victims
Pfizer pays compensation to families of four children after 15-year legal battle over controversial drug trial in state of Kano
The parents of four Nigerian children who died of meningitis have become the first winners of a 15-year legal battle against
Pfizer over a fiercely controversial drug trial.
The world's biggest research-based pharmaceutical company announced on Thursday that it had made payments of $175,000 (£108,000) to each family. More such compensation settlements are expected to follow.
Pfizer was sued after 11 children died in a clinical trial when the northern state of Kano was hit by Africa's worst ever meningitis epidemic in 1996. A hundred children were given an experimental oral antibiotic called Trovan, while a further hundred received ceftriaxone, the "gold-standard" treatment of modern medicine.
Five children died on Trovan and six on ceftriaxone. But later it was claimed that Pfizer did not have proper consent from parents to use an experimental drug on their children and questions were raised over the documentation of the trial.
Legal action filed against the company alleged that some received a dose lower than recommended, leaving many children with brain damage, paralysis or slurred speech.
US-based Pfizer had argued that meningitis and not its antibiotic had led to the deaths of 11 children and harm to dozens of others. But in 2009 it reached a tentative out-of-court settlement with the Kano state government worth $75m.
The families of four of the children each collected cheques for $175,000 from a compensation trust fund, after submitting DNA samples to show that the dead were their offspring.
Pfizer pays out to Nigerian families of meningitis drug trial victims
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