The 7th African Conference on One Health and Biosecurity holding in Lagos entered day 2 today Thursday 28th October 2021 with health experts calling on African countries to invest in Research and Development in order to take the African continent to the next level.
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Speakers after speakers in the first session of the day, harped on the need for African countries to take charge of it’s own destiny by investing in research which is tied to development. Dr. Alexander Ochem a consultant on African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative (AVMI) expressed sadness at the poor investment in research which has stifled development and is responsible for the backwardness of Africa.
According to Dr. Ochem, despite the abundant human and natural resources on the African continent, African countries continue to depend heavily on foreign funding for research and development for Africa’s problems. He made specific reference to the outbreak of Ebola and the present Covid-19 pandemic in which Africa is relying heavily on foreign donors for vaccines such as Astrazeneca, Johnson and Johnson, etc to combat coronavirus.
Dr. Ochem even went down memory lane to remind the conference that African countries met in Lagos Nigeria in 1980 and pledged to invest 1% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on research and development, but that sadly 41 years after till date, no single African country has fulfilled the pledge. He wondered how Africa as a continent can expect to develop and compete with the rest of the world when it is dependent on foreign governments and agencies for funds to conduct research into African problems.
The university don charged that the only way for Africa to develop is if it wakes up and have a change of heart to recognize that development is tied to research and no other way, then and then, will it start charting the path to progress.
Another university scholar Dr. Nicholas Ozor who is the executive director African Technology policy studies network, who made a presentation on developing effective policies for tackling adverse effect of climate change on the health sector in Africa, while analysing the effect of climate change, called for the regulation of the use of fossil fuels, implementation of environmental compliance laws, promotion of climate smart agricultural practices and importantly, investment in research and development among others as the panacea for effective policies for tackling the adverse effects of climate change.
In her presentation on the role of civil society organizations (CSO’s) in the fight against Covid-19 in Lagos State, Ms Titilope Akosa executive Director of Centre for 21st Century Issues, spoke extensively on how civil society organizations filled in the gap in the absence of government in addressing the adverse effects of Covid-19 on the populace through interventions in terms of donations of materials to mitigate the problem.
She also narrated how the civil society organizations monitored the vaccination process at the various government established centres in order to ensure that the right thing was being done and prevent those centres from being transformed into a covid-19 contracting centres instead of a vaccination one by reporting the state of affairs to the government and highlight problems before they occur.
Ms Akosa spoke on the educative role on coronavirus by the civil society organizations undertaken to complement the efforts of the government across the nook and cranny of Lagos State including even riverine areas with it’s attendant discomfort.
The conference will come to an end tomorrow Friday 29th October 2021 with lots of presentations on the theme: Universal Approach to Addressing Biosecurity Threats: Genomic Intelligence and Vaccines, lined up for the day.
