ebola: The absence of Nigerian science

   

Apart from the flash in the pan comments of Maurice Iwu, a professor of pharmacology, regarding the possible curative value of kola nut, our scientists have been curiously silent on the transmission of the Ebola virus to Nigeria through Patrick Sawyer, an American-Liberian.

Although Iwu’s comments which contained the rider that, “the tests are still in early stages”, were sensationalised out of context, it constitutes one of the few interventions on the strange pandemic by the Nigerian scientific community. When this writer was looking for credible information on the EVD in the aftermath of the expensive and disastrous salt water treatment hoax, what came to hand was a State Department document prepared by the United States’ medical specialists.

Mercifully and in spite of the almost total absence of our scientists from a national emergency requiring their expertise, the EVD, for reasons that also require elaboration, appears to be receding from Nigeria. That at least is the impression we laymen get from the miraculous recovery of some of the patients including a female doctor who had earlier contracted the disease. In search of answers to the puzzle of our scientists’ silence, I called up Tiwa Olugbade, a Professor of Pharmacy at the Obafemi Awolowo University. Olugbade alluded to the neglect of primary research in Nigeria, the foundation upon which applied research with policy implications ought to recline.

Illustrating his point, he argues that if indeed fruit bats are the repositories of the virus, what species of fruit bats are we talking about? Pointing to the colony of bats at the Obafemi Awolowo University and elsewhere in Nigeria including the vicinity of Aso Rock, Abuja, he pointed out that these bats have existed in these locations for ages without reported cases of the EVD or its transference to humans via bush meat, a culinary delicacy. In other words, there are gaps in the information supplied by American scientists which if we were a nation that values research, primary or applied, our scientists ought to have been able to furnish answers to.

Interestingly, innovations in medical science and drug development have occurred globally through the tragic whiplash of pandemics. For example, the influenza epidemic which led to more deaths than any of the World Wars as well as outbreaks of diseases such as measles or pneumonia, jumpstarted the discovery and production of a wide range of antibiotics designed to arrest these diseases and prolong human life. There is a direct correlation, therefore, between the status of medical and pharmaceutical research in any country, and its ability to surmount pandemics and prolong the lives of its citizens.

Take for example, Canada, whose scientists are obviously in the forefront of the efforts to produce a cure for the EVD. Two years ago, researchers of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada, developed a clutch of antibiotics which cures monkeys infected with the deadliest strain of Ebola. This scientific feat is one of the precursors of the development of the only known tentative cure for Ebola, Zmapp.

Three concerns flow from this. First, Canada did not wait for an Ebola outbreak in that country before funding research that led to a phenomenal advance in drug development. Second, and this connects with Akingbade’s point about primary research, is the spin-off such as new insights on the immune system that accrues from such investigations. Another way of putting this is that a knowledge economy that sets premium on research reaps the multiplier effects of its investigations, edifying itself and the rest of mankind in the process. A final point to be made in this respect is that Canada spends close to $1bn a year on pharmaceutical and medical researches, a sum which far outstrips what Nigeria reluctantly commits to its fund-starved research institutions and universities.

The underfunding of research and its devaluation generally let alone the decay of research infrastructure may yield clues as to why Nigerian science far from the cutting edge, is absent from current debates on the EVD. Perhaps, if there was more attention, we may have begun to get tentative explanations as to what therapies or combination of therapies resulted in the fast paced recovery of Nigerian patients diagnosed with Ebola. Are there perhaps other drugs apart from those already discovered and put on trial that possess similar properties as Zmapp or the now discredited Nano-silver?

As of now, Nigeria depends overwhelmingly on global pharmaceutical companies for the supply of drugs given that drug manufacturing in the country is still at a rudimentary stage. It is known however that global pharmaceutical companies undertake research and development in their host countries and do not invest in drugs for which they do not expect sustainable clientele or a ready market.   The plight of Nigeria as a backwater of pharmaceutical science and drug development was laid bare when President Goodluck Jonathan appealed to the United States President, Barack Obama, to expedite the supply of Zmapp to Nigeria. Multinationals, it is well known, tend to go for lifestyle drugs such as Viagra which target the well-to-do rather than life-saving drugs designed for the use of the masses in African countries. That is why it is such a pity that one hears a lot these days about attracting foreign investment and very little about developing a national scientific and technological infrastructure driven by the needs of Nigerian citizens.

There is also the issue that our scientists may find an entry point, indeed a by-pass in drug development by returning to eco-science which entails the recapture of indigenous knowledge system which for centuries sustained our traditional communities. Iwu made reference to this when he pointed out in respect of the anti-Ebola properties of kolanuts that: “This is a very exciting discovery. The same forest that yields the dreaded Ebola virus could be a source of the cure.” In other words, the interface of indigenous medical knowledge and Western science may provide for our experts the necessary impetus for a back door but important access to tackling our disease profile and those of our neighbours.

This will not happen unless the attitude of government changes to the funding of research considering that the private sector, national or global, by its very logic, will only invest in the kind of researches for which it can readily reap short term or long term profit. A related point concerns the almost contemptuous style in which government tends to deal with medical personnel and knowledge workers generally. It is difficult to understand for example, why in the midst of a national health emergency, government chose to indefinitely suspend 16, 000 resident doctors rather than make a further effort to understand their agitation. The refrain that government cannot fund research or treat medical personnel decently loses bite when set against the hefty amounts that are frittered away on non-essential items as well as the massive financial war-chests that are being amassed in the run-up to the 2015 elections.

In sum, a society gets the kind of science and innovativeness it pays for and sustains. A radical re-ordering of our national value system and spending priorities is thus required to bring Nigerian science to the very heart of our national health crisis worsened by the Ebola scourge.