The Nigeria COVID-19 Research Coalition (NCRC), established by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the Federal Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) and key stakeholders to generate research evidence to aid understanding of COVID-19 and support Nigeria’s response to the current outbreak, has held a colloquium to discuss the way forward for the coalition.
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The National Coordinator of the NCRC, Dr. Chinwe Ochu, while addressing the media said that the coalition has generated research that has impacted on the lives of Nigerians.
She also said that the NCRC was established to identify human and material resources for the implementation of the national agenda and to implement the research agenda for COVID-19 as a multi sectoral entity.
“We have been able to achieve some of these objectives and we are still working on growing stronger in addressing all of them. The uniqueness of the Nigeria COVID-19 Research Coalition is based on the fact that it utilises a model that we call that quadruple helix model”. Dr. Ochu said.
She said that the coalition worked with the Nigerian National priorities to develop research agenda.
She also noted that paucity of funds for research, inadequate trained human resources, inadequate research infrastructure, limited indigenous research protocols were some of the major challenges that confronted the coalition.
According to a member of the coalition, Prof. Ehimario Igumbor, the NCRC has conducted over two hundred impactful researches so far.
“Two years on, we are continuing to forge ahead in discussion around relevant research on COVID-19 that could inform responses. Today we are convening a colloquium to mark two years of emergence of the NCRC. A coalition of purpose, a coalition that is truly seeking to shepherd and ensure great stewardship around all research around COVID-19 in the country”
He also noted that the coalition has coalition would continue to work towards sustaining its successes.
On his part, another member of the NCRC and the Executive Secretary Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Prof. Elias Bogoro, pointed out that $5billion is required to fund research in the Nigerian health sector.
He also said that the gap can be bridged if African countries honour the one percent GDP pledge.
“For research and development that has an interface between the government, private sector and the academia and we are actually focusing on the people. Before now what we do was to concentrate the funding for research and development only on tertiary education sector but for the first time, we bring together five institutions that are having real times business in terms of development of vaccines generally in the country using the model of Covid-19 , we have institutions like NEMA, National Research Institute (‘NDRI) Usman Damfodio University, Sokoto , University of Jos and NIPRD among others because we are looking at the reagents component of what is needed so that it can be produced locally. We are actually looking at the NIPRD that is going to be used for vaccine protection, TETFund has put in N450 million to support that process and the ultimate thing is to come up with candidate vaccine for Covid-19 in the next 18 months”. Prof. Bogoro said.
The research coalition which is chaired by Prof. Tunde Salako, has a membership of over 50 institutions and provides a national platform for coordinating research on COVID-19 in Nigeria.
Papers were presented by various stakeholders both locally and internationally.
The theme of the colloquium is “Two years on: Gains, Losses and Lessons on Nigeria’s COVID-19 Research”.
