The Director General, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Professor Babatunde Lawal Salako, has called on Nigeria and other African countries to increase investment in healthcare research, saying this plays a critical roles in national development.
The NIMR DG made the submission at the recently concluded 2023 International Conference on Health Advances, Innovation and Research (ICHAIR), organised by the NIMR in Lagos
While acknowledging the expensive nature of health research, Salako stressed that the outcome usually outweighs the input in the long run. He therefore urged government at all levels to see beyond the education and sciences behind research and consider its potentials to improve the nation’s health system through the provision of new solutions and approaches to diseases management and treatment.
Salako, who mentioned creation of employment opportunities as one of the major reasons the country should fund health research, explained that research provides jobs for people at each stage, from field work to data collation, before the results are released.
According to him, “Funding research is very costly, but very beneficial in the long run because the results will impact not just the immediate population of the place where it is done but will transcend that country to other countries and the return on investment will be huge.
“So, I believe it is crucial for countries to fund research, if not for the sciences behind it, for political interest, countries should fund research. For improving their own healthcare system and providing new solutions and approaches to manage diseases, countries should fund research.”
He continued, “Of course the leadership of the country may not directly realise that funding research is an opportunity to create employment opportunities, especially for the young people, but there abound a lot of jobs for the youth population in research.
“For instance, before the results are available, there are people that work on the field, people who will collate data, and people who will sell sample containers and lots more. So it is important for government to start thinking of the economy behind funding research.”
Salako also discouraged the tendency of investors to always look for immediate return-on-investment in research, saying research does not work that way.
He revealed that, sometimes, researchers engage in experiment that fails, which may appear to the funder as a revenue loss, but which is not in the real sense. “That is just to tell us that there is no way there, which is also as important as telling us there is a way,” he explained.
The keynote speaker at the conference, Prof. Umberto D’Alessandro, director, Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia, who spoke on the topic, “Malaria: Past and current challenges”, emphasised the need for African countries to deliberately fund research on malaria eradication, saying dependence on donor organisations will not assist them to be malaria-free in good time.
While acknowledging the important role of vaccine in malaria prevention, D’Alessandro asserted that there is no one magic bullet approach in malaria elimination, saying the process requires a combination of different interventions.
Also speaking, a former Minister of State for Health, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, called on governments at all levels to invest more on research generally.
He said, “Government at all levels need to continue to fund research for the benefit of the nation. Research is not cheap because when you start a research work, you can’t determine how long it will take or what the outcome will be.
“One thing that is sure is that you stand to benefit from the research output and the result is always positive to the development of the society.”
Mamora, who was the chairman of the conference, commended NIMR for being in the forefront of promoting translational research in the country over the years.
He said NIMR has continued to maintain global excellence in research through the ground-breaking researches carried out by the institute.
“The annual ICHAIR conference is a testament of the leading role NIMR is playing to improve and increase research capacity in the country”, he added.
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What role does NIMR suggest the government, private sector, and international collaborations play in ensuring sufficient funding for healthcare research?