The belief among experts is that dearth of data for planning is a major problem in most sectors of the Nigeria’s enterprises, especially, the health sector. Precisely, lack of uniformed data has also remained a clog on the wheel of progress of governments at various levels, thereby hindering provision of adequate, effective, affordable and efficient health care services to Nigerians.
It has also been argued that for any meaningful result to be achieved in the health sector, it is essential for those managing and delivering health care, to base their plans on evidence of what is needed, and what works. Unfortunately, weaknesses in health information systems and lack of accurate data present many obstacles to sound decision-making.
Presently, the health challenges in Africa are increasing at an alarming rate but the health status of Africans remains far worse than that of people in many other developing regions. Although lack of access to health care and serious health system deficiencies are important reasons for this phenomenon, other elements aggravate it. One of them being insufficient research and development aimed at addressing Africa’s, particulatly , Nigeria unmet health needs.
It was therefore heart-warming, when AstraZeneca Trust, out of the need for funding that will develop research capacity and facilitate academic advancement in Africa, launched a not for profit Trust for the disbursement of medical research funding in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. The trust fund supports local academic medical research in areas of non- communicable diseases, focusing particularly on cardiovascular/ metabolic, respiratory and oncology conditions. However, dearth of a standardised data is a great problem in Nigeria and has affected planning on healthcare. According to experts, the data situation in Nigeria is so bad that most of them are based on guess work.
In the views of Chair, Scientific Review Committee, AstraZeneca Research Trust, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, at the moment there are no all encompassing health data rather most of the data are based on hospital studies. To address uniformity in data, Ogunsola said the AstraZeneca Research Trust project would look at standardizing data that would cut across all the six geo-political regions of the country.
“All we have now is data from the various hospitals and these hospitals’s used different methodologies that will be difficult to bring together as standardised data. In population rules, some of them are so small that we can’t even use their data because it doesn’t make sense statistically.”
“Research requires a lot of funding and we appreciate what AstraZeneca is doing. In three years, AstraZeneca made an initial commitment to the tune of $350000 annually to the qualifying researchers in Nigeria and other countries. After two years of operation, the project has made a positive impact in stimulating local research.
To date it has funded 46 studies, out of which 27 are in non communicable diseases and 19 communicable diseases. Just this month, the Research Trust has awarded an additional four funds for interventional and non interventional studies in Nigeria and are currently finalising the South African awards.
These studies are targeted to generate significant data currently not available in Nigeria and other African countries. Ogunsola said for Nigeria, they have decided to administer the fund which is about $350.000 dollars over a period of three years for studies that cut across various geopolitical zones.
“We will be looking at communicable and non-communicable but focusing more on generally on non-communicable and this means more data for Nigeria. “For example in HIV, if we did not have data that allows us know that mothers were transmitting to babies we will not put policies in place. We need local data not using American data that may not work in our situation.
“We are seeing more lung cancer but we are not a country that smokes a lot. If we just focus on tobacco that might not be our problem because we are seeing lung cancer here in people who are not smoking. So we need to start looking at other sources of environmental solution.
And one thing we have discovered is a lot of generator fumes. We need to be able to say: which type, how far you should keep your generator and whether you need to eliminate some but we can’t say that because everything we say now is guess work.”
Some of the beneficiaries of the research award recently in Nigeria include; Dr Syvester Nwokediuko from the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, researching on Gastroesophageal reflux disease in Nigeria with a sum of N5,000,000; Prof. Simeon Isezuo from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, researching on Registry for acute coronary events in Nigeria, with a sum of N4,200,000;
Dr Oshun Olayiwola from the University of Lagos researching on Epidemiology of Viral meningitis due to enteroviruses and herpes simplex viruses in Lagos, Nigeria, with a sum of N3,560,000 and Dr Akaninyene Otu from the University of Calabar researching on Seroprevalence and correlates of Dengue fever in Cross River State: a population based cross sectional survey, with a sum of N3,500,000.
By: Chioma Obinna
Vanguard News
ABUJA: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
PORTHARCOURT: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
LAGOS: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
STOP paying for airtime and electricity, Let your phone pay its bills with ScreenT
You may also like
Comrade Lemii Christian Emerges Chairman of NANNM Rivers State Branch in Historic Victory
PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA Following the long awaited National Association of N…
FG Supports Robotic Surgery Expansion to Reduce Medical Tourism
Nigeria is taking another step toward strengthening specialised healthcare …
Complete Knee Replacement Rehabilitation Package in Lagos
Knee replacement surgery is a major step toward pain relief and improved mo…
NAMDA threatens strike over unpaid medical lecturers’ allowances
The Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA) has warned…
Resident Doctors Signal End to Strike Threat After High-Level Talks with Gbajabiamila
The threat of a nationwide indefinite strike by the Nigerian Association of…
