Food security: Nigeria must fund fight against zoonotic diseases —Don

Dr Tayo Omobowale is a Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Ibadan. He speaks on sundry issues concerning food security with regard to management of the veterinary subsector of agriculture in the nation. Excerpts:

What has the experience of being a teacher of Veterinary Medicine been?

The experience has been wonderful, but there have been several challenges. It starts from some people in the society not understanding what the field entails.

Some people think it is just about dogs and cats, chicken, sheep and goats and no more. Some people would even ask ‘why would you study Veterinary Medicine, when people in the villages don’t lift a finger before their goats give birth?’

So, a lot of people in the past did not seem to know what the field is all about.

What is it about?

Apart from ensuring that animals are in good health, Veterinary Medicine also deals with the prevention of diseases that can be transmitted between humans and animals, that is talking about zoonotic diseases.

All over the world now, people are talking about ‘One Health, One Medicine,’ because there are so many diseases that affect animals and humans.

What is One Health, One Medicine?

The concept of One Health, One Medicine has been linked to the 19th Century German physician and pathologist, Rudolf Virchow, whose discoveries of a particular disease in pork led to valuable public health measures.

Virchow coined the term “zoonosis” and proclaimed that there should be no dividing line between human and animal medicine. Talking about human and Veterinary Medicine, there are so many areas of collaboration. We have several of such collaborations between veterinary medical doctors and human medical doctors.

You must have heard of a recent news in which the heart of a pig was transplanted to a human being. Without the involvement of veterinarians, that wouldn’t have been possible.

And there are so many procedures that human medics carry out in which at the developmental stages, vets are important.

So, when you talk about Veterinary Medicine, it is not just about the health of animals; food security and the prevention of diseases transmissible between animals and man are also very important functions of veterinarians. These zoonotic diseases are very many and quite a number of them are endemic in Nigeria

You mentioned something about caring for animals as entities of their own. How do you view the question of animal rights in Nigeria? Are there laws as obtains in some other countries?

There are laws that address the issue of animal welfare in Nigeria, but they are hardly ever implemented. That is the reason you see people having this nonchalant attitude; a lot of people believe you can do anything to animals; which is wrong.

As a Christian, I know the Bible says that ‘a righteous man cares for the welfare of his beasts.’ If you see any man who cares for the welfare of animals, a man who would not deliberately harm an animal, such a person would care very well for humans. Unfortunately, quite a number of Nigerians do not care for the welfare of animals. That notwithstanding, we have seen so many people who care a lot for the welfare of animals.

Going back to the job of churning out experts in this field, how far have you gone?

I have been a veterinarian for about 27 years. Right from the time I was a field veterinarian I have been involved in the training of veterinary medical doctors. I started practising somewhere in Lagos, and later, I joined the services of the University of Ibadan as a veterinary officer at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Apart from the fact that I had to treat animals in the clinic and the zoo as well as go for consultancy services, I also taught vet students whenever they were in the clinic for their rotations.

Finally, I crossed from the Veterinary Teaching Hospital to the Department of Veterinary Medicine in the mainstream academic environment. And then, I had the additional responsibility of training veterinary students and doctors up to the Ph.D and Fellowship Diploma levels

What other synergies can there be between veterinary doctors and human medical doctors?

Like I earlier mentioned, we have several areas of reaearch collaborations. My own research group, The Cardiorenal Research group based in the University of Ibadan, has had several collaborations with medical loctors and others researchers in the Basic Medical Sciences and these collaborative efforts have resulted in several good contributions to the scientific community which have the potentials to improve both human and animal health.

Other Veterinary Medical colleagues also have various fruitful collaborations with human medics. These collaborative efforts cut across all areas of the biomedical and clinical sciences. Sometime ago, at the faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Ibadan, medical doctors (surgeons) collaborated with surgeons from the Department of Veterinary Surgery to work on animal models for renal transplantation. Similar collaborations exist among members of the two profession not only in Nigeria, but also all over the world.

Do animals also suffer terminal diseases?

Just like humans, animals also suffer terminal diseases. Some animal owners find it strange and unbelievable when they are informed that their animals are hypertensive and have cardiomyopthay. They usually wonder what worries animals have that can lead to hypertension and other heart diseases. When you talk of conditions like renal failure, cancer, nervous diseases and various other diseases that are common to man, animals also suffer from such and we use the same terminologies to describe most of these problems.

If you happen to be the Minister of Agriculture in this country, what would you like to change in the veterinary medicine subsector of agriculture?

Government is trying, but a lot still needs to be done. As Minister of Agriculture, I will ensure that there is adequate funding for research to solve problems facing our livestocks in Nigeria. If our research base is not strong enough, there is little or nothing that can be achieved.

Honestly, if there is insufficient funding for home-grown research in the agricultural sector; research to solve our peculiar problems in Nigeria, little will be achieved.

Wouldn’t you agree that the funding problem is common to all facets of the university endeavour?

Yes. I agree with you on this. Funding is really very poor and it is applicable to all areas. But funding for research, in this country, should come first.

When it comes from outside, those funding agencies would want to understudy some things about us, especially as those things affect them.

But the major problem is that they are not going to fund research to solve our own problems. And that’s the reason government should not pay lip service to education.

A lot of academics use their personal money or obtain loans to conduct research; and groundbreaking, cutting-edge research cannot be done like that.

If an agency, say from a foreign country, decides to fund some kind of research in Nigeria, it is going to be along the line of their interest, not something to be of major benefit to our own country.

So, to improve the agricultural sector and improve food security, government must release funds for research into diseases that affect animals and cause a lot of losses.

When you look at food animals generally, poultry, sheep and goats, etc., there are so many endemic diseases that affect them and cause losses every year. You see a lot of farmers losing money to these diseases. We need very good intervention from government. Let us work on how to prevent these diseases and attain food security.

If the government provides the kind of adequate funding that you have proposed, do we have enough human capital in the field that will be commensurate?

We have more than enough. In recent times, so many countries have been coming to Nigeria to poach vet doctors, human doctors and many highly qualified academics. Once they are offered good money, they leave. And when they get to those countries, they get very good conditions of service and so, they give  their best.

With the abysmally poor pay of Nigerian professors, we still have a long way to go.

Education in Nigeria is, indeed, financially less demanding on students. People pay next to nothing to go to federal universities. When these students get the degrees, first, masters and PhD, they travel out, get jobs and settle there and that is a huge loss to Nigeria.

So, as long as the environment is not made conductive for researchers and the country unable to retain it’s best brains, we are not going to achieve the goals. And these countries know the quality of people that could come from  here.

So, when they see the quality, they entice them with good incentives; very few people can resist that. It is like Nigeria is merely investing for other counties to reap.