Public Health Research: IRCE Pushes Domestic Funding, Responsible AI Use

The Executive Director of IRCE, Prof. Alash’le Abimiku, made the call at a press briefing in Abuja ahead of the centre’s fourth Annual Scientific Symposium, themed: “Shaping the Future of Public Health Research: Sustainable Funding, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and Innovation.”

Abimiku said the reduction in global funding for public health programmes, particularly following cuts in United States support for programmes such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund, made it imperative for Nigeria to develop sustainable domestic mechanisms for financing research and health programmes.

She noted that a significant proportion of research funding had traditionally come from international sources, including the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), adding that reductions in such funding could affect Nigeria’s ability to compete for research grants and sustain its scientific capacity.

The IRCE chief therefore urged the federal government to provide competitive funding opportunities for Nigerian researchers, stressing that the country must begin to invest more in its own research capacity rather than depend heavily on external support.

According to her, countries such as South Africa had demonstrated that domestic funding could help researchers maintain their capacity during periods of reduced international financing, adding that Nigeria could adopt similar approaches.

Abimiku, however, identified the emergence of AI and machine learning as an opportunity to make research and public health interventions more efficient, particularly at a time when available funding is shrinking. She said AI could assist researchers in analysing large volumes of data, identifying disease hotspots and supporting evidence-based decision-making.

She cautioned, however, that researchers must use AI ethically and responsibly, particularly in protecting confidentiality and ensuring that excessive reliance on the technology does not undermine human creativity and scientific discovery.

The Head of Research Operations at IRCE, Dr Sophia Osawe, said the centre had already been applying AI and machine learning through its Inform Africa project to develop tools that can support pandemic preparedness, identify areas requiring interventions and guide governments in targeting resources such as vaccines.

Abimiku stressed that the effectiveness of AI-driven public health interventions depended on the availability of quality and comprehensive data, noting that gaps in disease reporting could result in inaccurate assessments of communities requiring urgent interventions.

She said the symposium would therefore bring together researchers, policymakers, industry players and communities to explore sustainable research financing, responsible AI use and locally driven solutions to Nigeria’s public health challenges.

Similarly, the Head of Molecular Diagnostics at IRCE, Dr James Onyemata, stressed Nigeria’s critical role in regional disease surveillance and genomic monitoring, given its large population and strategic position in West Africa.

He said Nigeria, which accounts for about half of West Africa’s population, must generate and share genomic surveillance data to support the development of vaccines that effectively target virus strains circulating in the region.

Onyemata warned that without such local data, vaccines developed elsewhere might not provide adequate protection for West African populations because they may not sufficiently target the variants prevalent in the region.