By Daniel Tyokua
The Nigerian Biological Safety Association (NiBSA), has sought more funding for training and re-training of members across the country.
The president, Professor Delonye Abiodun made the appeal during the Association’s 2022 conference and AGM in Abuja, yesterday.
He said the association was established in 2010, to bring together professionals in the area of laboratory practices and others to explore more avenues on biosafety and biosecurity
Abiodun explained that inadequate resources had affected training of its members especially abroad.
He stated that the union was established to protect and extend the frontiers of knowledge in respect to biological safety in the society and beyond.
“The association was established in 2010 to bring together professionals in the area of laboratory practices either in the clinicals or in the research as well as in the diagnostic.
“Since then, we have been going on membership drive, and we started bringing ourselves together to share scientific and technical knowledge that will improve our manpower in the hospitals, laboratories and on the research field”
He explained that the association organised annual conferences to improve the knowledge and capacity of members in each of the geo-political zone of the country.
“We wish to have done more than what we would have done in terms of training and enhancing capacity, but money is not always our friend, if we have funds, we will have more of our members in our conferences than we have currently.
“Many of us attend similar conferences outside the country, and we meet with colleagues in the biosafety field, who has sponsorship from their countries. But in our country, that is limited, so if we have more funding it will help us to do more. We have about 600 members.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, our members were deployed to 72 facilities across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria, in series of training that had occurred over the years, we have a feeling of fulfilment. We raise the bay in protection of our communities, facilities and our fellow laboratory workers.
“At the level of west African region, NiBSA has been playing a critical role in bringing together all the 15 African countries together.
“In the recent certification examination, Nigeria fielded 18 participants, and all those that were certified by the International body, more than 50 per cent are Nigerians and members of NiBSA”. He said.
