…Research is a business-NIMR DG
By Hassan Zaggi
The House of Representatives and stakeholders in the medical research sector in Nigeria have decried the low level of medical research in the country which is occasion by poor funding.
They have, therefore, advocated for the establishment of what they christened Medical Research Council/Health Research Council which will be saddled with the responsibility of coordinating and sourcing for funds for medical research in the country.
Speaking at a two-day stakeholders meeting on the establishment of Medical Research Council/Health Research Council, in Abuja, Wednesday, the Chairman House of Representative Committee on Healthcare Services, Hon. Tanko Sununu, regretted that, over the years, medical research has not received considerable attention in the country.
“When we look at research as it is today in Nigeria, is not taking the front burner.
“There are a lot of issues, during the COVID-19 pandemic, so many things happen. Some modalities that we use to fight the COVID-19 were peculiar to Nigeria and such modalities produced tremendous result.
“We need to document them to see how we can make it standard so that other countries can copy from us.
“If you look at our activities, research is not at the forefront. We only provide service, but we don’t provide money to evaluate the outcome of the service we have provided.”
Hon. Sununu further explained that: “So, the essence of this meeting is to see how we can improve on our research documentation, research conduct and all that.
“Most importantly, how we can get the acceptability of the international community to have a body that can stand for the country and can attract resource and it can be in a common pool that research outlets can also be funded.”
While lamenting the low funding for research in the country, Hon. Sununu recalled that: “The first time I went to the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), I think their research grant was just 200 dollars.
“During our oversight, we suggested ways we think things can be improved and by October 2022 when we went back, they have attracted over 600 dollars as grant.
“It means if we can be focused in our research, we can improve the foreign reserve earning of Nigeria. Let our researches be internally funded rather than other people coming from other countries, do their research here and go with their findings.
“The meeting is for us to see how we can transform the NIMR to a Medical Research Council so that it will be more effective and then more friendly and coordinate how research can be done in the country.”
On his part, the Director General of NIMR, Prof. Babatunde Lawal Salako, said that most countries of the world grow fast and tackle their health challenges because they have functional bodies that are coordinating medical researches.
“In most modern successful countries, they have functional research and development which is anchored by a health research agency.
“I give you example of the international institute of health in the US and Medical Research Council in the UK both of them essentially do the same.
“For most African countries, only a few do have this kind of bodies providing specific funding for health research.”
Prof. Salako noted that apart from the intervention by Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), medical researched has not received the needed attention.
“For us in Nigeria research has not been adequately funded even though government is funding research through TETfund. TETfund is restricted to tertiary institution alone. The universities to be specific. It covers all forms of research.
“But the example I have given are specific for health because research in health has been shown to contribute most to human development in terms of ensuring high life expectancy, good life health indices like maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, infant mortality and things like that.
“So, we believe that the best thing that could happen to Nigeria is for Nigeria to create its own medical research council which first function will be to fund health research specifically for all health researchers in the country from the universities to research institutes and other institutions.
“If this happens, we believe that we will be able to provide local solutions through funding of peculiar health challenges within Nigeria to be able to solve these problems,” Prof. Salako said.
The NIMR Director General called on the business community and investors to consider investing in research because, according to him, it is a profitable business.
“Research should also be seen as a business. This is to attract private business people who don’t realise that research is a business.
“For example, if you fund research and develop new drugs, that drug will fetch the company and the developer money.
“So research should be seen as business and private practitioners are also encouraged to also fund research.
“But you need a body that will coordinate this funding and the tradition is that the country will either have a medical research council or a Health Research Council in charge of research as it is obtain in the US. “
