Olajide, of the Department of Pharmacy, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom, made the call while addressing participants at a two-day Workshop on Techniques in Biomedical Research and Drug Discovery.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was organised by the Central Research Laboratories (CRL), University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara.
Olajide said that the appeal became necessary because of the increasing significance of the creatures to human development through experimentation.
He added that researches involving animals should be done responsibly and that Nigerian scholars, particularly in the field of biomedical sciences, needed to be conversant with ethical approvals to attract global attention.
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The university expert said that for biomedical researches to be meaningful and impactful, researchers should take cognisance of what he called the 3Rs of animals in research.
He listed the 3Rs to mean, Replacement, Refinement and Reduction.
“The 3Rs are basic conditions obtainable all over the civilised world and for which products of such researches are often considered as respectable tools of addressing and providing lasting solutions to human challenges,” he said.
While explaining further, he said replacement meant the protection of animal or the use of alternative techniques and possible outright avoidance of the use of animals in research to ensure their preservation.
While canvassing the optimum use of the technique of refinement in the employment of animals for research, the don said that animal rights were as important as human rights.
He stated the need to minimise the sufferings of the animals, while ensuring their welfare throughout their lives in the animal house as well as in research situations.
According to him, when this is done, researchers are indirectly taking care of their research towards ensuring that appropriate results are obtained.
“This is needful as proper management of animals in research is not only ethically right, but also good science,” he said.
The expert also identified the concept of reduction as an important principle in the use of animals for research purposes.
He declared that the reliability of the results of scientific endeavours was not proportionate to the number of animals used in the process, but rather their careful and methodical usage.
While earlier declaring the workshop open, Prof. Sulyman Abdulkareem, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, commended CRL for organising the forum, which he described as fantastic.
He said it afforded them the opportunity to broaden their horizon in biomedical and other forms of scientific researches.
Abdulkareem urged Olajde to assist in creating contacts and opportunities for training and retraining of participants for the growth of knowledge and general human development.
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