The Osun State University (UniOsun) has won $1.4 million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s grant to carry out multi-disciplinary research on black flies trapping.
The institution’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Clement Adebooye, announced the grant while addressing reporters yesterday on Osogbo campus.
The vice chancellor said the approval of the grant followed a proposal by a professor of Public Health Entomology and Parasitology in the Department of Zoology.
He said: “Most black flies feed on the blood of mammals, including humans, although the males feed mainly on nectar of flowers. They are a common nuisance for humans, and many countries have programmes to suppress the black fly population because they spread several diseases, including river blindness. River blindness is one of the debilitating diseases of public health importance.
“According to World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 99 per cent of infected people live in 31 African countries, including Nigeria. It has been estimated that at least 220 million people required preventive chemotherapy against Onchocerciasis, 14.6 million of the infected people already had skin disease and 1.15 million had vision loss.
Adebooye also said: “Four countries have been verified by WHO as free of river blindness after successfully implementing elimination activities for decades: Colombia (2013), Ecuador (2014), Mexico (2015), and Guatemala (2016). But our country Nigeria needs to double its scientific research to get out of the burden of river blindness.
“Therefore, a multi-disciplinary research team, led by Prof. Monsuru Adebayo Adeleke, a Professor of Public Health Entomology and Parasitology in the Department of Zoology at the Osun State University, Osogbo, developed a long-term research proposal for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on the subject Black Fly…”
“The research is for the development of black fly pheromone baited trap and some entomological studies on black fly trapping and control in Nigeria.
“I am glad to announce that the research team, in a stiff and healthy competition, has received a grant of $1.4 million for entomological research and black fly pheromones from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
