Internal funding will increase scope of research— NIMR D-G

On Jan 27, 2025

The Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), has called for increased internal research funding to help address the nation’s health challenges and improve the quality of lives. Prof. John Obafunwa, the Director-General of NIMR made the call at a media chat organised by the institute in Lagos.

Obafunwa noted that 95 per cent of research works carried out by the institute were funded by foreign donors, thereby limiting its scope of research.

He said NIMR has the facility and human capacity to explore some of the health challenges and proffer solutions.

“The running of NIMR so far has depended to a large extent, 95 per cent 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 pertaining to 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 D-G explained that research on diseases like diabetes myelitis, hypertension, heart attack which falls under non-communicable diseases would help to reduce its burden in the country.

“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.

The D-G who is a pathologist, said the institute would continue to engage in global interaction to relate what is happening in NIMR to the world and create a viable environment for researchers.

He said that the institute was presently working on a Lassa fever vaccine which is currently at preliminary stage.

NAN/Wumi