Nigeria Health Online

NIMR: DG recounts achievements

(L-R) Dr. Bamidele Iwalokun, Director of Research; Prof. Stella Smith, Director of Research; Prof. Oladapo Obafunwa, DG/CEO NIMR, Mrs. Akintan Nwamaka Chief Administrative Officer and Prof. Oliver Ezechi, Director of Research at the Media Chat

The Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Professor John Obafunwa, has unfolded plans to broaden the activities of the institute to further ensure it achieves its mandate as the nation’s leading research institute.

Speaking at a media chat organized by the institute on Monday, Prof. Obafunwa said plans are ongoing for the reactivation of NIMR outstations currently lying fallow  in Maiduguri, Borno state, Kainji in Niger state and Asaba, Delta State.

“These facilities are essentially lying wasted with very scant staff and having little or nothing going on except for the one at Asaba where some collaborative work is being done with the Delta State Ministry of Health.

“My intention this 2025 is to deploy some very senior researchers to these facilities and get them to be fully functional,” he said.

Prof. Obafunwa called for increased domestic funding to support research into pressing health challenges in Nigeria, such as non-communicable diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and chronic renal conditions. He disclosed that 95 percent of research works carried out by the institute was funded by foreign donors, thereby limiting its scope of research.

 “The running of NIMR so far has depended to a large extent, 95 percent on foreign donors like the World Health Organisation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, West Africa Health Organisation and others.

“It is said that he who pays the piper dictates the tune, what this means is that most of this research will be what the foreign donors are interested in. We need to recalibrate and focus a lot more on issues about our health conditions and this is why the government and indeed our legislators need to approve money to concentrate on local research,” he said.

The NIMR DG also announced that the institute is seeking partnerships with private sector investors to commercialize its diagnostic tools, reduce dependence on imports, and conserve foreign exchange, adding that the institute had developed diagnostic kits for diseases such as COVID-19, hepatitis B and C, HIV, and monkeypox.

“We can do research to know if there are any special genetic predispositions to hypertension in our environment, and identify genetic constitutions in any part of the country that favors the development of diabetes myelitis.   A lot is said about chronic renal diseases and renal failure with dialysis, kidney transplant in the country, we need to find out if there is anything in our water and food that we need to revisit to know and the genetic predispositions to chronic renal diseases.

“We have facility to explore these things, NIMR is that expert at the background that people don’t see, we hope that a forum like this will help us to get across, to not just the average man on the street, but also legislators”, he said.

Obafunwa further informed the media that researchers in the microbiology department are currently conducting critical studies on the prevalence of tuberculosis, a major health concern in the country. The findings from this research, he said, are expected to contribute significantly to the development of effective prevention and treatment strategies of the disease in the country.

Also, NIMR is currently engaging with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to strengthen partnerships in combating public health challenges such as the Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV), a respiratory virus with significant public health implications. The institute, he further said, is also working on Lassa fever vaccine in collaboration with NCDC as the two agencies work on diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart attack to help reduce their burden in the country.

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