Text of Interaction by the Vice-Chancellor of The University of Jos with Members of the Press

 

GRADUATE STUDENTS TRACKER

 

Many of these students have completed their programmes and are now fully engaged in the healthcare delivery industry serving in Hospitals, Universities, Pharmaceutical Companies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) among others.

 

 

ACEPRD’S INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME

 

• The Centre’s internship programme is one of the objectives of the World Bank-supported Africa Higher Education project in West and Central Africa. To achieve this mandate, the Centre’s Masters and PhD students were posted to various operators across the private sector, Hospitals, Research Institutes, Health Centres and NGOs. Some of these include: Pauco Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Jos University and Bingham University Teaching Hospitals, Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) Hospital, ECWA Pharmacy Ltd, National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI) AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria (APIN), Gauze Pharmaceutical Ltd, FAITH Alive Hospital Jos, Fertile Ground Hospital Jos, Plateau State Human Virology and Research Centre, Jos, Biotechnology Research Centre, Ebonyi among others.

 

IMPLEMENTED ACEPRD SHORT COURSES

Again, as part of its mandate, the ACEPRD has organized several workshops to train practitioners, students and other interested persons on new discoveries and innovations in the following areas:

 

S/N	SHORT COURSE	ATTENDANCE
1	Mushroom Cultivation, ACEPRD, Jos	91
2	Research Methodology Workshop, ACEPRD, Jos	201
3	Drosophila Melanogaster Research Workshop, ABU, Zaria	69
4	Drosophila Melanogaster Research Workshop, Universite d’Abomey- Calavi, Benin Republic	61
5	Drosophila Melanogaster Research Workshop, Mali.	36
6	Drosophila Melanogaster Research Workshop, Benin Republic	50
7	Grants Writing Workshop, Lome, Togo	45
8	Grants Writing Workshop, Universite d’Abomey-Calavi, Benin Republic	105
9	Grants Writing Workshop, Jos	45
10	Traditional Medical Practice Workshop, Jos	102

 

The Centre is intensifying efforts to organize some other short courses and programmes in its bid to earn revenue towards funding its activities and potentially contribute to the University’s coffers. These are:

1. Clinical Phytomedicine
2. Intellectual Property
3. General research Management
4. Waste Management and Biosafety
5. Responsible Conduct of Research in Phytomedicine
6. Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practice.

 

ACEPRD GRANTS

With an array of internationally acclaimed Researchers, industry Specialists and Experts, the Centre has successfully applied for and secured a number of national and international grants to undertake groundbreaking Herbal Medical research.

 

S/N	GRANT	AMOUNT
1	Grant received from University of Salford, UK	£20,000
2	Grant from Africa Research Education Fund (European and Developing Countries Clinical Trial Partnership - EDCTP)	€ 46,300
3	Grant received from ITI Foundation Research Grant, Switzerland	€ 30,675
4	Split PhD programme - University of Jos/University of Salford, UK	€ 15,824
5	Grant from the Medical Research Council	£40,000
6	SILYMARIN Clinical Trials Research for COVID-19 (Special TETFUND Intervention project)	N21,000,000
7	EU Innovation Research Grant for Innovation (Expected)	$370,000

 

ACEPRD KEY PRODUCTS

From these cutting-edge researches, the ACEPRD has been able to develop a host of impactful products and acquire many facilities such as:

1. MUSHROOM:

The Mushroom Farm: built and equipped for mushroom production and research has been expanded with up to five (5) different species of mushrooms. Mushroom production and processing have received NAFDAC approval and number. Short-term/vocational training and commercialization of the mushrooms

2. ACEPRD MUSHROOM TRAINING CENTRE

The ACEPRD has built and furnished a Mushroom Training School for developing the capacity of young graduates and non-graduates who want to venture into the business of mushroom farming for socio-economic development.

3. COVIP PLUS VACCINE:

The vaccine research is receiving Government attention for its production. International and local collaborators have shown interest and are also contributing towards the vaccine research and production.

COVIP-PLUS VACCINE CLINICAL TRIAL

Clinical trial is the only recognized strategy to transfer the benefit of COVIP-Plus from the successful laboratory animal trials to humans. The Phase 1 trial will help to replicate and confirm the results of the laboratory animals in humans while the Phases II & III trials will make the vaccine product available for use by humans.

COVIP-Plus successful clinical trials have the potential to introduce a paradigm shift in the management of snakebites in Nigeria and globally. The vaccine holds the potential to drastically reduce the use of anti-snake sera globally. The vaccine equally has the potential to reduce household poverty and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa.

4. SCABI-PLUS PRODUCTS

These are soaps, shampoos and creams for anti-microbial remedies for humans and animals.

5. COVID-19 Tea

The Centre, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has researched into the Coronavirus and has developed a set of Herbal Teas to combat the health menace. The COVID Tea has been registered with the Federal Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Industry. It has also been registered with NAFDAC and is awaiting certification and approval for its commercialization.

6. ACEPRD COMMERCIAL CENTRE

The University Administration has donated a 5-bedroom duplex to the ACEPRD for undertaking the Centre’s commercial activities.

 

OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR

• Design and development of an Herbarium for medicinal plant
• Design   and   development of a Medicinal Plant Repository with over 200 medicinal plants (http://aceprd.unijos.edu.ng/medicinal-plants/)
• ACEPRD’s Researchers have over 100 publications in per reviewed journals.
• ACEPRD have designed a fly model development for research works.
• Subscription of Bioinformatic software's such as Schrödinger tools, WinSoft tools, ACD/Lab tools, MolSoft tools, PyRx tools, etc.
• The Centre has been honoured with 3 United Nations and 9 local Awards to date.

 

    ACEPRD GLOBAL PARTNERS (MoU)

The Centre is currently in partnership with more than 16 organizations in promoting research and development. They include:

1. Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), Uganda
2. University of Lome, Togo
3. Universite d’Abomey-Calavi, Benin Republic
4. University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
5. University of Science, Technique and Technology, Bamako, Mali
6. Foundation for Sustainable Community Development Initiative (FSCDI), New York, USA
7. University of Montagnes, Cameroun
8. Salford University, UK
9. Sheffield Hallam University, UK
10. National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI, Vom)
11. South-Eastern University Kenya
12. Makerere University, Uganda
13. PAN Africa Veterinary Vaccine Centre (AU-PANVAC) among others.

 

PUBLICATIONS

 

The Centre has publications in journals that are indexed in Elsevier, Scopus, Science Direct and Pub Med indexed journals.

 

FACULTY TRAINING

 

The ACEPRD has invested in short courses, conferences and workshops for Academic staff in the Faculties of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Departments of Biochemistry, Microbiology, Plant Sciences and Technology. The Centre also supported a member of Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in an Exchange Programme in the University of Lyon, France.

 

Additionally, the ACEPRD worked with the Department of Microbiology to train members of the Faculties of Natural, Pharmaceutical and Medical Sciences in Molecular Biology short courses.

 

There were diverse engagements with Faculty members through Seminars and Workshops in multi-disciplinary academic and education programmes that were the intermediate goals for the achievement of either Postgraduate or short course implementation and evaluation for such persons.

 

Those trained are involved in novel areas of research and education for the advancement of Phytomedicine at the Centre. Part of the innovation by the Centre is to train Medical personnel that can help introduce Phytomedicine Clinics in the Country. However, the system is still being developed to ensure establishment of the requisite support in Law, Policy and Governance.

 

MANAGEMENT TRAINING

 

The ACEPRD trained various members in Project Management, Research Administration, Finance Management, Procurement Management and Clinical Trials Management.

 

Some of the training involving some of the staff at Centre included Specialised Equipment Training, Laboratory Management, Research Methodology, Statistical Analyses as well as Bioinformatics and Genomics.

 

IMPACT ON UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE

The Centre made some impact on the University governance. It was achieved by introducing the Disbursement Linked Results/Indicators for projects that will come up as a model for managing them.

 

The University Animal House received a refurbishment fund from the Centre while the University’s Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital also received some funding to refurbish its Animal House pursuant to its collaboration with the Centre in the area of Animal Quality Assurance for drug research.

 

CHALLENGES

 

Among the challenges being faced by the Centre is the issue of funding especially now that the ACEPRD is adopting a self-sustaining and revenue generating model following the winding down of the World Bank grant.  

At the beginning, slow release of funds by the Central Bank of Nigeria almost hampered the smooth take-off of the Project. This was due to the TSA financial policy for MDAs not to use commercial banks which affected the Project timelines and work flow.

The Centre also experienced some challenges in attracting other grants during the project life-cycle. This affected the continuity of research activities especially for the ACEPRD’s Postgraduate programmes. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the graduation of 6 foreign students enrolled into the programme.

 

The Centre was also unable to secure the ACE for Development Impact grant to continue its work. The Centre scored 75% out of 100% in the assessment but was still not considered for additional funding.

However, an occurrence that has proved more worrisome was the recent situation where the Centre and by extension, the University of Jos was viciously targeted by a few individuals using a section of the media (Social Media) to unfairly criticize us on an issue that they do not possess sufficient information about. Yet, they were in a hurry to make a categorical determination without considering all the facts.   

 

The attention of the University Administration was, therefore, drawn to reports that circulated especially on the social media claiming the University had approved the COVID-19 Herbal Tea produced by the ACEPRD for public consumption.

Most of these reports cited an Internal Memorandum issued by the Secretariat of the University Senate after the Senate’s meeting of 13^th January, 2021 as basis for this assumption.

The issues generated by the various media reports stemmed from the following:

1. The Internal memorandum from the Secretariat of the University Senate which was for internal use. It was addressed to the University community for its information as one of the giant strides of the University in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Online news reports that were published by two (2) online news outlets, Cable News and Opera News, were clear examples of the attempts made in some quarters to bring the University’s name to disrepute as a result of a purely internal matter. However, even from the above mentioned publications, it was obvious that the African Centre of Excellence in Phytomedicine (ACEPRD) did not say that it had endorsed the Tea for use by the general public. Had the reporters done their due diligence, they would have discovered that all the necessary steps were being taken to validate the research before formal approval by the concerned authorities. The headline of these stories were obviously misleading going by the content of the main body of their report.

In light of the foregoing, the University Administration found it regrettable that an honest attempt to encourage the work of Researchers in the University among fellow colleagues was so taken out of context and in many instances, derided even by people who should know better. Nevertheless, ACEPRD’s work to secure formal authorization for public distribution of its Herbal Tea will continue.

However, without prejudice to the unshaken confidence the University Administration has in the ability of the ACEPRD Researchers to deliver on their mandate, it has directed the Centre to stop any further engagement with any non-authorized persons with regards to the Herbal Tea. This is pending the formal approval by the concerned authorities for its use by the general public.

Following this incidence, the University Authorities issued a strong reminder to all staff to always abide by the University regulations with regards to communicating information to the general public. They were warned that the necessary sanctions would be applied to any violators.

For those of you in the media who observed the various online commentaries on the Herbal Tea, you would have noticed that many of our staff spoke in defense of the University’s image and integrity. I wish to put it on record that this is highly commendable and we enjoin other members of the University community to emulate such posture since we all have a stake in protecting and upholding the cherished name of our University. 

 

CONCLUSION

As the ACEPRD commences its journey into another new phase of its existence, we have undertaken to harness and fully utilize the Centre’s tools, resources and capacity towards addressing identifiable medical challenges affecting our communities. In the next few days, I will be publicly unveiling some of the newly acquired equipment and facilities that are being deployed towards achieving these objectives.

Members of the Press are most welcome to join us as we flag-off the commencement of this exciting journey towards self-sustainability for the ACEPRD.

 

Thank you for your attention.

 

 

Signed:

Professor Seddi Sebastian Maimako FCA

Vice-Chancellor