Ondo varsity Professor bags malaria research award

A Nigerian Professor of Pharmacology and the Director, Strategy and Programme Management, University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo State, Olumide Ogundahunsi, has received the ‘Ogobara Doumbo Multilateral Initiative Malaria (MIM) Award for Lifetime Achievements in Malaria Research and Capacity Building.’

Ogundahunsi bagged the award during the 8th MIM Pan African Malaria Conference, which took place in Kigali, Rwanda.

According to the Assistant Registrar Public Relations Unit of the institution, Temitope Oluwatayo, the Executive Director, MIM, Prof. Wilfred Mbacham, said the prize was in recognition of Prof. Ogundahuni’s selfless and starling efforts, resulting in the training of many with scholarships in malariology globally.

“In receiving this award, we encourage you to continue to provide strategic directives on how to mobilise at the grassroots by investing, innovating, and integrating such efforts to end malaria,” Mbacham stated.

Reacting to the development, Prof. Ogundahunsi said, “There is no greater honour than recognition by one’s peers, and it is particularly remarkable and humbling to receive this award alongside some of my teachers and very senior malaria researchers.”

The award was instituted in recognition of the efforts of Ogobara Doumbo (1956–2018), a Malian-born ace researcher and capacity builder who trained as a parasitologist, immunoologist, medical anthropologist, and biostatistician.

Prof. Ogobara Doumbo co-created the Bamako Malaria Research and Training Centre, which trains and works with the health system in villages.

Oluwatayo added that “Prof. Ogundahunsi’s professional career spans more than three decades in teaching. international scientific research (delivery, administration, and management).

“He has worked with institutions in over 40 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, America (North and South), and Southeast Asia over the past 21 years. He served as a scientist with the Tropical Diseases Programme of the World Health Organisation in Geneva from May 2000 to July 2020.

“Ogundahunsi led several programmes and initiatives to strengthen research capacity in low- and middle-income countries at the institutional and individual levels, including setting up postgraduate and postdoctoral training programmes with seven selected universities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America.”