Africa lags behind in medical research

Lazarus Sauti

According to a World Health Organisation factsheet, most disease outbreaks are in Africa than in any other continent but the continent took the longest to detect the outbreaks and to communicate about them. This is because Africa’s medical research is very low, and poor performances reflect the general weaknesses in research and in information systems in the wider public sector.

Scientific leaders believe the problems are systemic: poor science education, lack of equipment in laboratories, a dearth of funding and little appreciation for the role that science can have in helping the continent.

Scientists in Africa are contributing immensely to the problems affecting the continent. They have not been able to convince the people that the solutions lie in the power of medical research. According to Professor Oye Ibidapo-Obe, president of the Nigerian Academy of Science, even though people see all the problems that confront the continent, somehow scientists have not been able to convince the people that the solution lies in their libraries, in their workshops and in their laboratories.

By any index, the African continent, therefore, produces a disproportionately small amount of medical research output and much of it relatively low in quality.

Sharing same views, Dr Abdisalan Mohammed Noor, a research scientist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, says Africa is producing medical research output of low quality.

He further said, “Given the serious weaknesses in routine health information systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is not surprising the surveillance systems for detecting emerging infections, which require dynamic real-time data collection, are deficient.”

Furthermore, medical research in Africa is still lagging because technology in developed countries is moving fast, and technology in Africa is moving at a snail pace. True to the cliché, “Unless you are at the forefront you cannot hope to keep up”, Africa is suffering the consequences.

Because of this, Professor Mark Taylor, a medical scientist notes: “The next big challenge for Africa’s medical research institutions is not to catch up with Western institutions but to make them more sustainable,” adding that it is fair to say that while investing in individual researchers and departments is already paying dividends, the challenge for African research institutions remain – and so do the challenges for public health.

However, Zimbabwe’s Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa recently told participants at the 20th University of Zimbabwe – University of California in San Francisco (UZ-UCSF) collaborative medical research day in Harare that scientific research could contribute immensely to health and development.

“Scientific researchers have a critical role to play in coming up with innovative strategies of addressing some the challenges facing the healthcare sector. Therefore medical research can play a big role to improve personal and community health outcomes,” he said.

This means the African continent must take charge of research priorities to beat health problems, and the priorities should be based on needs identified within the African continent.

Instead of basing on donor defined research, African governments should use vast resources in their respective nations to fund medical research. This is the reason why Ghana President John Dramani Mahama believes that Africa needs to dedicate more strategic funding towards the overall health of Africans.

Together with scientists, governments and other stakeholders must also look for additional efforts to promote cross-African networking of medical researchers, as well as interactions between them and policy makers.

Stakeholders must also join hands in looking at ways of improving medical research laboratories for science students in African countries.

Speaking on the Common African Position on the United Nations Post-2015 Development Agenda, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf called all stakeholders to work together to improve the lives of Africans.

“We are all on this journey together and while we have overcome tremendous obstacles, more lie ahead in the work to improve the lives of people across Africa. We must take the unfinished business of ridding Africa of malaria, HIV and TB,” she said.

It is also crucial for African governments, through their health departments to team up with medical research institutions and universities, to form world class research institutions, and to seek cures for a wide variety of diseases including malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.

Without doubt, Africa is the fastest developing continent in the world today. To keep the continent on the right development path, political leaders and policy decision makers need to invest in medical research to reap not only a geographical dividend, but a disease free dividend as investing in medical research not only save lives but enhances quality life for the entire continent.