Covid-19: Ooni of Ife, Afe Babalola University Partner on Clinical Research for Drugs and Vaccines

By our reporter

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi(Ojaja II) is partnering Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado Ekiti on a clinical research aimed at developing drugs and vaccines for viral infections with special focus on Coronavirus. 

Ooni Ogunwusi made this known at his Ile-Oodua palace on Monday while receiving reports from his Clinical Research Team.

The revered royal father  after the donation of the motorized modular fumigator to Ekiti State recently paid a courtesy call on Founder of the Afe Babalola University , Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State , Aare Afe Babalola to discuss further on moving health of the nation forward. Ooni Ogunwusi after presentation of the locally designed motorized modular fumigator to the university poured encomiums on the founder for his great interest in education and health and described the legal luminary as a rare asset to the continent.

“Baba Afe Babalola at the age of over 90 is still very committed to the greatness of Africa; Nigeria is indeed blessed to have him and I am particularly blessed to have him as a descendant of Oduduwa. He has already invested millions of dollars in the ABUAD College of Medicine which is very outstanding in Africa and he is currently making great efforts to upgrade his Laboratory to Level 4 Biosafety that can handle very sensitive and other deadly infections like covid 19.

There is a need to develop joint clinical research on drugs and vaccines from plants / herbs to fight the Covid-19 infection with its peculiarity in the black race. With this, lots of vaccines to prevent sensitive and deadly infections will be rolled out for use globally. This is unprecedented! May the Almighty Olodumare keep this Baba Afe Babalola for us.” Ooni said.

“We must look inward and solve our problems by ourselves. There is no need for our government officials and wealthy ones to go abroad for medical checkups. They should rather focus their resources on making Nigeria medical system work better.” Ooni said.

Recently , I proffered some mix solutions which I inherited from this throne as the custodian of cultural heritage of the Oduduwa race. A team of four from the research unit of the House of Oduduwa Initiative which include Professor Esimai presented the mixture to the founder of ABUAD , Aare Afe Babalola who immediately constituted a research group to develop drugs and vaccines from the herbal mixture.

“ABUAD Teaching Hospital is 2nd to none. This is a major breakthrough, another interesting thing in the Alternative Medicine(Herbal world).

Prof Olapeju Esimai in her report thanked the Ooni for the opportunity given her and the research team in House of Oduduwa Initiative to work with Afe Babalola University’s medical research team on drug and vaccine development from the herbal mix made from calcium salts and processed leaf plants.

Professor Esimai also stated that the team was introduced by Chief Afe Babalola to the Provost of College of Sciences at the university, Prof Abiodun Ojo. The ABUAD research groups on the drugs and vaccine development include Prof Abiodun Ojo, Prof Okiki (microbiologist), Prof Onasanya (molecular biologists ), Prof Sanya ( Provost of College of Medicine & Clinician who has worked on local herbs),great number of researchers , laboratory technologists and graduate students. The research group held the inaugural meeting on May 6th , 2020 and since then series of meetings have been held and work is in full progress.

Prof Esimai who made a brief presentation at the inaugural meeting informed the research group that the herbal mixture have been used on people with symptoms suggestive of covid19 infection and there have been remissions of the symptoms within few days. However for wider and continued use, the mixture need to be compounded into drugs and vaccine need to be developed.

“The drug and vaccine development are in phases, the first phase is the drug development. This entails analysis of the mixture for microbial , mental, photochemical, chemical characterisation, toxicity, pharmacological and medicinal property classification. The second phase according to her which is the vaccine development will involve animal experiments to derive antibodies to introduction of recombinant protein antigens of different viruses. These experiments will take place in the laboratory which is about level 4 Biosafety. While the third phase is the clinical trials”. She said.

Professor Olapeju Esimai, a Public health Physician, a public health consultant to WHO, UNICEF and many other international health agencies, also current Head of the Community Health Department, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife said the members of the research group were so enthusiastic and as such work has commenced immediately.