A Professor of Pharmacognosy and Therapeutics, at the University of Ibadan, Professor Grace Olusola Gbotosho has called for the strengthening of the health systems in Nigeria and stressed the need to scale up surveillance systems for appropriate decision making.
She made the call in an inaugural lecture she delivered on behalf of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences of the University of Ibadan.
Professor Gbotosho said there must be effective capacity building through the training and retraining of health workers to avoid health workforce attrition.
Speaking on her extensive research on malaria, the inaugural lecturer stated that malaria interventions are one of the highest returns on investment in public health.
She recommended that the government should adequately and continuously fund malaria control and elimination.
Professor Gbotosho urged the government to ban the sale of chloroquine over the counter in Nigeria as it remains banned as an anti-malarial drug. She stated that it was more important to ensure the rational use of the highly effective artemisinin-based combination treatment.
She noted that there was a need for continued collaboration between the academic Centres of Excellence and policy makers and implementers to translate research findings into evidence- based policies.
Professor Gbotosho also called for the establishment of an African Malaria School where knowledge can be integrated across research disciplines and physical infrastructure developed to train and retrain high quality researchers to undertake research in Malaria and other infectious diseases of poverty and actualize the dream of a Malaria-free world.
The 515th inaugural lecture was entitled ” Stalking the Stalker: Escapades in the World of Malaria”
