Buhari Appoints Adetifa New NCDC DG after Ihekweazu’s Exit

•Names Osinbajo chairman, health sector reform committee

Deji Elumoye

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Dr. Ifedayo Morayo Adetifa as the new Director General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

This was disclosed in a statement issued yesterday by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu,

This followed the appointment of the current NCDC Director General, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, as the Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in charge of Health Emergency Intelligence with effect from November 1, 2021 Ihekweazu would lead the work on strengthening pandemic and epidemic intelligence globally, including heading the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin.

Adetifa is an Epidemiologist and Consultant Paediatrician who is currently an Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), United Kingdom, and Clinical Epidemiologist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)-Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP) in Kilifi, Kenya.

He is a graduate of the College of Health Sciences, University of Ilorin, Kwara State, and completed his specialist training in Paediatrics and Child Health at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos, to become a Fellow of the West Africa College of Physicians.

During residency, he also received training in infectious diseases at the Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, and at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.

Adetifa moved to the Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia (MRCG) in 2004, to work as a Research Clinician and later as a Clinical Epidemiologist conducting research mainly in Tuberculosis (TB) Epidemiology.

There he also won a European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) Career Development Fellowship, completed an MSc in Epidemiology at the LSHTM and a PhD (also in Epidemiology) at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

He served as member of the Gambian National Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Committee, provided expert support for the care for drug susceptible and resistant TB, provided technical support to the National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Programme, and supported the Round 9 Global Fund Country application. Part of this Global Fund grant was awarded to the MRCG for a countrywide survey to determine the burden of TB and he led the implementation of this survey.

He joined the LSHTM and KWTRP in 2014 and there his research on the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases is aimed at generating evidence for policy in low- and middle-income countries particularly those of Africa.

He implements disease and serological surveillance, conducts vaccine impact studies, examines approaches to monitoring vaccination, performs health economic evaluations, and complements all these with mathematical modelling.

His current streams of work are focused on assessing the impact of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduced in Nigeria in 2015, on the application of the vaccine seroepidemiology for estimating population immunity, force of infection and vaccination coverage in African settings, and COVID-19 epidemiology. He was awarded an MRC/DFID Africa Research Leader Fellowship for his vaccine seroepidemiology research in 2018.

He currently serves on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Africa Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group, Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme Advisory Group, WHO Technical Advisory Group for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Vaccines, and on the Kenyan National Immunisation Coordinating Committee.

He was a member of the WHO TB Impact Measurement Taskforce, participated in missions to Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Since 2020, he has been a Commissioner for the Lancet Nigeria Commission, and the co-lead of the Commission’s Burden of Diseases Working Group.

Adetifa was born in Lagos and is from Ekiti State. He is married to Dr. Uche Jane Adetifa and they have three children.

Meanwhile, Buhari has approved the setting up of a Health Sector Reform Committee to commence the development and implementation of a Health Sector Reform programme for Nigeria in collaboration with the State Governments and the FCT administration.

According to the statement, the setting up of the Committee was sequel to a Health Sector Diagnostic Review Report developed by a consultant, Vesta Healthcare Partners and the Federal Ministry of Health.

The committee would undertake a review of all healthcare reforms adopted in the past two decades and lessons learnt and factor them into the development of the new Health Sector Reform Programme.

The committee which is set up for a period of six months under the Chairmanship of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has members drawn from private and public sector health care management professionals, development partners, representatives from the National Assembly as well as the Nigeria Governors Forum among others.

Other members are: Governor of Delta State, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa; Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire; Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Alex Okoh; Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at University College London and Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health, Prof Ibrahim Abubakar; Director General, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Council, Mr. Babatunde Irukera; Senator( Dr) Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe; Dr. Adedamola Dada; Dr. Sani Aliyu; Dr. Mairo Mandara; Dr. Haliru Yahaya, Emir of Shonga; Professor Uche Amazigbo ; Director Hospital Services, Federal Ministry of Health; Dr. Faisal Shuaib; Prof Nasiru Sambo; Dr. Ifedayo Morayo Adetifa and Dr. Gambo Aliyu.

Others in the committee are: Dr. Betta Edu, Chairman, Nigeria Health Commissioners Forum representing National Council on Health; President Nigeria Medical Association; President Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria; President National Association of Nigeria Nurses & Midwives; President Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria ; Mrs Temi Marcella Awogboro ; Dr. Muhammad Sadiq; Dr. Azubike Tagbo, the World Health Organisation, Nigeria and the new NCDC Director General.

Vesta Healthcare Partners and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are to serve as resource persons and have observer roles in the committee.