Abuja: Medical experts and global health partners have advocated strategic integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and local capacity building to sustain public health research and data management in Nigeria. The stakeholders made this known at the 4th Annual Scientific Symposium organised by the International Research Centre of Excellence (IRCE), Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria (IHVN), in Abuja, with stakeholders examining innovation.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, the two-day symposium was themed: ‘Shaping the Future of Public Health Research: Sustainable Funding, AI/ML and Innovation,’ focusing on technology-driven solutions for sustainable scientific research and healthcare delivery across Africa. Speaking via a recorded message, IHVN Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Patrick Dakum, highlighted that data-driven innovation and technology are crucial to addressing emerging and future public health threats in Nigeria.
Dr. Dakum stated that the 22-year-old institute established IRCE after recognising that rigorous local research was vital to effective public health implementation and sustainable healthcare development across Nigeria and Africa. He referenced IRCE’s decade-long journey of excellence and mentioned that the Federal Government had introduced measures, including a sector-wide approach, to promote health system sustainability and strengthen healthcare delivery nationwide.
Prof. Alash’le Abimiku, Executive Director of IRCE, noted that dwindling international research funding necessitated the adoption of advanced technologies to sustain scientific research, innovation, and local solutions across Africa and Nigeria. She emphasized the importance of deploying AI tools to offset resource gaps and drive local discoveries forward while ensuring collected data quality to prevent unreliable information from compromising machine learning algorithms and research findings.
Corroborating her position, IHVN Managing Director, Dr. Charles Mensah, stated that researchers do not need to wait for flawless datasets before deploying AI tools effectively. He explained that a rich but smaller dataset could initiate training, with AI models improving progressively as more data are generated and validated. Mensah also mentioned rigorous quality control and strict biosecurity measures being deployed to prevent misuse or abuse of AI systems in research activities.
Prof. Rose Anorlu from the University of Lagos urged researchers to break professional silos and strengthen inter-institutional collaboration. She called on the Federal Government to eliminate political bottlenecks from scientific environments to enable domestic research to advance without unnecessary constraints and delays across institutions.
Dr. Temitope Ilori, Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), underscored the importance of locally generated data in forming targeted health policies and interventions nationwide. She highlighted the role of AI in enhancing public health systems, particularly in disease surveillance and targeted service delivery.
In his keynote address, Prof. Oyewale Tomori stressed the importance of integrating meteorological datasets into public health research to predict outbreaks. He emphasized that AI could maximize existing public health efforts by processing diverse datasets to identify emerging health risks across populations.
The symposium also addressed concerns about data equity and power dynamics in global health data-sharing arrangements involving African countries. Dr. Etien Koua from the World Health Organization (WHO) encouraged African countries to build domestic digital capacities and strengthen bargaining positions in data-sharing agreements.
Support for the symposium came from local and international organisations, including APIN Public Health Initiatives, KNCV Nigeria, and the International Science Council, which pledged collaborative efforts to position Nigeria as a regional hub for advanced clinical and planetary health research.