Nigeria, Canada collaborate to tackle mpox

The Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) and other stakeholders in the country have launched the Canada-Africa Mpox Partnership (CAMP).

The event was aimed at curbing the spread of mpox and study the dynamics of its transmission from humans to humans.

The other institutions in the project are the University of Ilorin, Slum and Rural Health Initiative Network (SRHIN), Institute Of Human Virology In Nigeria and Maryland Global Initiative Corporation (MGIC).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the project is in partnership with the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

During the event on Wednesday, Babatunde Salako, the NIMR director-general, said the Nigeria consortium would work with their Canadian partners to help inform the clinical and public health response to the local and global mpox epidemic.

Mr Salako said 68 researchers with multi-disciplinary expertise from Canada, Nigeria, the U.S. and the United Kingdom would work on the project involving community engagements from inception.

The director-general, however, reiterated the need for a medical research council to fund research works peculiar to Nigeria.

“Many nations have agencies that fund health research directly, but we don’t have that here in Nigeria, and that is why health research appears to have been funded poorly. The body funding the CAMP project is the Canadian Institute of Health Research; if we have such a body, we will be able to fund research on health issues that affect us directly,” the NIMR boss stated.

Rosemary Audu, the principal investigator of CAMP Nigeria, said the project would focus on three topics across diverse epidemiological, geo-social and health system contexts involving Mpox transmission, treatment and vaccines.

Ms Audu, also the Director of Research at NIMR, said the two central components of the CAMP project were multi-directional capacity building and community engagement.

“In the first sub-project, CAMP researchers will work to understand transmission from multiple angles and the second sub-project will involve conducting a random contrail trial to access the safety and effectiveness of the smallpox drug tecovirimat as treatment for the disease,” she explained.

(NAN)