The African Union Development Agency has called for the deployment of Science, Technology and Innovation to identify public health needs and cost-effective packages of healthcare.
Building capacity in STI, the agency noted, would help improve the health of citizens.
The Supervisor at Centre of Excellence in STI, Professor Olalekan Akinbo, while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Abuja, said in most cases, ill health could be attributed to poverty.
He noted that over the past century, science and technology provided the basis for the largest ever aggregate improvements in human health.
Professor Akinbo said advances in scientific knowledge and its application, helped to slow the trend of high fertility and high mortality rate, adding that this would also lead to increasing better health for many people all over the world.
The supervisor noted that indoor air pollution, dysentery, water-borne diseases such as cholera and vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue and AIDS account for millions of deaths annually.
He said these diseases were hitting hardest the countries that are least prepared and could not afford to deal with them.
“Some of these issues can be addressed using current knowledge, while others require scientific breakthroughs in science and technology,“ he added.
In the area of agriculture, the expert said advances in STI had facilitated higher yields, greater efficiency and nutritional content in the world food supply.
He said genome editing – an emerging technology being initiated by the AU, was a typical example of an innovative technology that could be applied in agriculture for improved crop yield.
He said,“Food production, however, must double in the coming decades to meet rising demand and meet the challenges entailed in inter alia improving resistance to drought, pests, salinity and temperature extremes.’’
Prof. Akinbo said the challenges are associated with raising the nutritional content and reducing post-harvest loss, all in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner.
He said that at the same time, the regulatory challenges of assuring safety in food production and consumption would increase exponentially.
“Although the necessary technology for increasing the agricultural output is available in many developing countries including Nigeria, certain requisites must be met’’, he said.
Prof. Akinbo noted that these include the will to advance economically, the opportunity and organisation to use the technology, elimination of political, social and economic disasters to development.
He said it also involved the ability to first incorporate the technology into the overall development and then to continue using it.
The professor pointed out that in the domain of food security, advances in science and technology provided the foundation for green revolution.
“Improved knowledge of plant biology and breeding techniques led to better seeds and cultivation practices that drastically increase yields,“ he said.
(NAN)
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