A Nigerian Professor of Pharmacology and the Director, Strategy and Programme Management, University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo City, Ondo State, Olumide Ogundahunsi has received the ‘Ogobara Doumbo Multilateral Initiative Malaria (MIM ) Award for Life Time Achievements in Malaria Research and Capacity Building.’

The award was presented during the 8th MIM Pan African Malaria Conference which took place in Kigali, Rwanda.

The Executive Director, MIM, Prof. Wilfred Mbacham, said the prize was in recognition of Prof. Ogundahuni’s selfless and starling efforts resulting in the training of many with scholarship in malariology globally.

‘In receiving this award we encourage you to continue to provide strategic directives on how to mobilise at the grassroots by investing, innovating and integrating such efforts to end malaria,’ Mbacham stated.

Reacting to the development, Professor Ogundahunsi said “There is no greater honor than recognition by one’s peers, and it is particularly remarkable and humbling to receive this award alongside some of my teachers and very senior malaria researchers”.  

The award was instituted in recognition of the efforts of Ogobara Doumbo (1956- 2018), a Malian-born ace researcher and capacity builder, who trained as a Parasitologist, Immunologist, Medical Anthropologist and Biostatistician. Prof Ogobara Doumbo co-created the Bamako Malaria Research and Training Center that trains and works with the health system in villages.

Prof. Ogundahunsi’s professional career spans more than 3 decades in teaching. international scientific research (delivery, administration, and management).

He has worked with institutions in over 40 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, America (North and South) and Southeast Asia over the past 21 years. He served as a scientist with the Tropical Diseases programme of the World Health Organization in Geneva from May 2000 to July 2020.

Ogundahunsi led several programmes and initiatives to strengthen research capacity in low- and middle-income countries at the institutional and individual levels including setting up postgraduate and post-doctoral training programmes with 7 selected universities in Africa, Asia, Middle East and South America.

Temitope Oluwatayo, anipr

Assistant Registrar,

Public Relations Unit,

UNIMED, Ondo.