Professor Kwakwo A. Koram, Director of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), University of Ghana, said most research works in the nations universities are being funded with foreign aids, grants and loans, which does not show much importance being attached to the research by government and stakeholders in the industry.
He said research in science, mathematics, engineering, technology and agriculture, holds the key to the development of every nation, and therefore has to be held in high esteem by government and industry.
Prof Koram, who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Abuja, Nigeria at the launch of the World Banks 19 Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) Project, said medical research is very essential to improvements in the health of the people and for the nations development.
He said, the NMIMR as a major stakeholder in medical research in the sub-region, is committed to research on health priorities and training of biomedical scientists.
The Director recounted that the Institute had discovered novel compounds for the potential treatment of trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), which is now awaiting patentship in the United States.
He urged ECOWAS countries to work together through the West African Health Organization, to combat the spread of diseases in the sub-region.
He said, malaria for example, kills a lot of children annually, reduces the lifespan of people and causes huge socio-economic losses to the people and the nation.
Prof Koram said neglected tropical diseases such as lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) schistosomiasis (bilharzias), trachoma (blinding eye infection), and onchocerciasis (river blindness), all debilitate and make people poorer and poorer.
He said the Institute is collaborating with other research institutions in the sub-region to help control these neglected tropical diseases.
The Director observed that the World Bank's ACE Project would impact positively on the sub-regions socio-economic development through the training of professionals.
Of the 19 approved centres of excellence, Ghana has three, Nigeria 10, Senegal two, while Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Cameroon has one each.
The ACE Centres in Ghana include the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement and the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens at the University of Ghana, and the Regional Water and Environmental Sanitation Centre, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi.
However, the University of Ghana is the only University in West and Central Africa that has two approved centres of excellence.
Report by Iddi Z. Yire, GNA Special Correspondent in Abuja, Nigeria. Courtesy, Association of African Universities.
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