CHIEF Executive Officer, APIN Public Health Initiatives, Dr Prosper Okonkwo, has said Nigeria is among the countries on the right direction in achieving HIV epidemic control, with partnership and collaboration of many stakeholders, including the academia.
Okonkwo disclosed this during the second memorial lecture of Professor David Olufemi Olaleye, entitled ‘Building Partnership and Collaborative Relationship for Research Between NGOs and Academia’, delivered at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan.
Okonkwo, represented by the Assistant Director for Prevention and Community Services of APIN Public Health Initiatives, Dr Olabanjo Ogunsola, said the progress is linked to clinicians being able to monitor the quality of HIV care and HIV medication by having HIV viral load checked in persons living with the virus in the laboratory by virologists like Professor Olaleye.
He stated, “without those results from the laboratory, we will not know whether we are addressing the HIV epidemic thoroughly, he has been working on this since 2001. Nigeria has made progress and we are moving towards epidemic control.”
Dr Okonkwo said an ongoing Nigeria Implementation Science Alliance (NISA) Women and Infants Cohort Study (WICS) is currently working on understanding why Nigeria has a high number of babies still infected with HIV.
“We want to see if truly Nigeria contributes the highest number to mother-to-child transmission of HIV; the cohort study is working to have 50,000 women living with HIV and their babies to see the transmission rate of the virus among them,” he added.
On building partnership and collaborative relationships for research between NGOs and academia, he said there is the need for increased collaborative research because of its importance to improve health of people and effect change in policy.
According to him, such collaborative research between academia and NGOs will ensure knowledge translation, complementary expertise, task sharing and interdisciplinary research to complex issues and access to resources and funding opportunities.
Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan, Professor Kayode Adebowale, represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic, Professor Emmanuel Ayoola, in his address, described Professor Olaleye as an exceptional scholar whose leadership and work extends beyond the university and Nigeria.
Earlier, the chairman, Board of Trustees, David Olaleye Endowment Foundation, Professor Ademola Ajuwon, had said the first David Olufemi Olaleye Memorial Early Career (DOMEC) grant was to train the next generation of researchers and develop their capacity for cutting-edge research to address challenges of current and emerging epidemic-prone infectious diseases of public-health importance.
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