Ogunnaike Narrates How Engineering Aids Fight against COVID-19

By Bennett Oghifo

The global fight to stem the harmful effect of COVID-19 has crucial inputs of engineering knowhow, Professor Babatunde Ogunnaike has said.

Ogunnaike, an American chemical engineer of Nigerian descent and the William L. Friend Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware, United States of America, discussed how engineering has helped the world to contain the Coronavirus, so far.

Speaking, recently, as a guest lecturer at the first public lecture webinar, organised by the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, on ‘The Strategic Role of Engineering in Containing the COVID-19 Pandemic’, Ogunnaike emphasised that the engineering profession is dedicated to translating scientific knowledge into useful solution to practice problems, adding that engineering must keep the society functioning at steady state, as well as rise to the occasion to tackle novel problems when necessary.

He said the contribution of engineering to the global response to COVID-19 include, understanding the pandemic through data acquisition, modeling, analysis and clarification.

According to him, the profession also played a prominent role in slowing the spread of the virus, testing and diagnostics and was unprecedented in rapid vaccine development, manufacture and distribution.

Ogunnaike said good science and engineering was necessary and indispensable component in any society but hasn’t been sufficient. He called for effective engagement with public policy makers and government at all levels, effective public information campaign, clearer communication and better education about risk and uncertainty.

The professor of bio-molecular engineering said effective engineering in the 21st century must include tripartite components of technical feasibility, financial viability and societal desirability.

The Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who was the special guest of honour, observed that the pandemic has brought to the fore, the relevance of biomedical engineers, computer and technology engineers, internet facility adding that the state government has seen strong collaboration between the government and engineers in development of the state.

“We have been able to increase our infrastructure capacity, building three brand new hospitals and International Infectious Disease Centre, to be able to respond to outbreak of diseases. The government is developing interest in the application of block chain technology in healthcare management,” he said.

Earlier, the president of NAEng, Alex Ogedegbe explained that the academy was poised to develop thought leadership papers for the development of engineering in Nigeria, promote innovation in industries and tertiary institutions through research, design, and fabrication a well as competitions across the broad areas of engineering needs in Nigeria and linking such innovations with industry.

He said the modernisation of University’s curriculum was an area that the academy has been passionate about and was reaching out to engineering regulators like Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), to improve the curriculum.

Ogedegbe said the academy picked the topic of the lecture in view of the current challenges of COVID-19 globally and selected the speaker based on his vast wealth of experience in the engineering profession.