According to Babatunde Salako, the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), roughly 90% of the nation's medical research is funded by donations.
He made this declaration on Wednesday at a gathering sponsored by the group and held in Abuja with the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
He asserts that in order to provide stable, long-term support for health research in Nigeria, which he believes still has a long way to go in terms of adequate funding, a Medical Research Council should be established.
He said that creating a Nigeria Medical Research Council with reliable federal funding will offer a competitive funding programme targeted at researchers at universities, hospitals, and research institutions in addition to enhancing and coordinating health and healthcare research. In addition to currently in place extramural support mechanisms like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
He remarked, “The best thing that can happen to Nigeria is to have its medical research council, which is precise to fund all health research in the country from universities to research institutes and other institutions.
“Most modern successful countries have functional research and development through a specific health research funding agency like the National Institute of Health in the United States of America, and the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom. Even though the government is funding research through TETFund, it is restricted to tertiary research alone that is specifically for universities, and it covers all forms of research and not health alone.”
Better health indicators, more direct grants to Nigeria, more locally funded projects, more policy briefs from research evidence/innovations, and more home-grown solutions to challenges in drug and vaccine development, and the health system as a whole, are all things he mentioned as indicators of the Medical Research Council’s success.
He advocated revising the NIMR act to more closely resemble the 1958 Medical Research Council Act.
Yusuf Tanko Sununu, chairman of the Senate Committee on Healthcare Services, has stated that the government is working to increase financing for scientific investigation. As a result of suggestions for enhancement made during oversight, he noted that the NIMR research grant has increased from less than $200,000 to $6 million dollars as of October last year.
He claimed that increasing Nigeria’s foreign exchange revenues by prioritising research would be possible.