An alumnus of the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Dr Ifedayo Morayo Adefifa has been appointed as the new Director General of Nigeria’s Centre for Diseases Control (NCDC).
A statement from the Nigerian government on Monday says his appointment follows the resignation of the former Head of NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu.
The Precision NG reports that Dr Ihekweazu was on Wednesday, September 1 appointed Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).
A peep at Dr Adetifa’s profile show that he had his medical training at the University of Ilorin, Kwara, Nigeria and completed residency training in Paediatrics at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos, Nigeria for which he was awarded the Fellowship of the West Africa College of Physicians in Paediatrics. He then added an MSc in Epidemiology at the School and later got a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Before his appointment, he works as a Clinical Epidemiologist at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi, Kenya.
He had earlier worked as a Clinical Epidemiologist at the Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia at the LSHTM. His research interests and work then were in Tuberculosis Epidemiology.
On a general view, his research interests are infectious diseases epidemiology specifically vaccine impact studies including assessments of the full effects of vaccines (indirect and non-specific effects of vaccines, impact on AMR); assessments of crude and effective vaccine coverage, serological surveys of population immunity and innovative approaches to increasing vaccine coverage.
He is a co-principal investigator and co-investigator respectively on the following vaccine effectiveness studies in Kenya-Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine Impact Study (PCVIS) and the Rotavirus Immunisation Programme Evaluation in Kenya (RIPEK)
His study group currently works on vaccine seroepidemiology projects funded via a 2019 MRC/DFID African Research Leader Fellowship. The study will combine epidemiology and mathematical modelling to serology data to monitor vaccination coverage, assess the impact of vaccination programmes, and to address specific policy questions in Kenya.
His Google Scholar page shows he has to date 53 academic publications and has been cited 6613 times.
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