Prof Akinyemi advocates periodic review of antimicrobial agents used in hospitals, clinics

The Microbiology expert made the advocacy as part of his recommendations while speaking as the 112th Inaugural Lecturer of LASU at the popular Buba Marwa Auditorium at Ojo, on Tuesday, October 14, 2025.

He said, “Periodic review of antimicrobial agents used in hospitals and clinics is essential, given the rapidly spreading plasmid-encoded multi-drug resistance in bacteria.”

The theme of the Inaugural Lecture was, ‘Itsy-Bitsy Animalcules in our Lives: An Unending War and Survival Strategies.’

The erudite scholar further recommended that Private and Public health workers should always base a definite diagnosis of typhoid fever cases on culture, adding however that, where the use of a single Widal agglutination test is inevitable, the Malaria parasite test should be included alongside

 it.

He said that Mass education of the entire populace on the danger involved in the indiscriminate use of drugs is crucial.

He said that a national health policy that will encourage the search and the use of novel antimicrobial natural products from plants must be formulated, implemented, and sustained.

Speaking to a mammoth crowd of management, staff, students, invited guests, relations and well-wishers, Prof Akinyemi maintained that a mass public campaign on safe methods of sewage and refuse disposal should be encouraged, promoted, enforced and sustained, adding that the ultimate prevention and control of typhoid fever will depend on the improvement of social welfare of the people, such as the provision of potable water.

Professor Akinyemi stated further in his recommendations, “There is a need for a general overhaul of the education sector to make every programme in the University professional-based.

“The cross-interrelated discipline/professional certification and practice should be allowed to thrive with prescribed specific professional training for a period not less than 6 months or 18 months maximum to promote youth self-reliance, reduce over-dependency on paid government jobs”, he stated.

Akinyemi made it clear that there is a need for the National University Commission (NUC) to make it, part of its accreditation criteria that every University should set aside 5 to 10% of its annual budget as seed funds for commercially valuable innovative research, without losing focus on competing with National and international grants/funding.

He said that there is an urgent need for the establishment of genomic infrastructure such as a Functional National Genomic Database (NGD) and Nigerian Bacterial Culture Typing Centre (NBCTC), which will be a reservoir for all the studied bacterial strains at the genomic level for future use or applications, particularly in the areas of Production of diagnostic kits for disease surveillance, Antibacterial drug formulation/production with indigenous biotechnological and pharmaceutical industries, Vaccine production against emerging and re-emerging bacterial-associated diseases based on the local or national surveillance outcomes in preparedness for possible bacterial-associated epidemics and/or pandemic diseases, thus culminating in capital flight reduction, on imported bacterial vaccines, and Product improvement for food and pharmaceutical industries.

He stated that the cost of identifying a bacterial pathogen from any source up to the genomic level is estimated to be between 1.9 million and 2.5 million naira,  “Hence, there is a need to establish a bacterial culture repository in the Microbiology Laboratory at Lagos University and, by extension, in all microbiology laboratories in the Federation with a 24-hour electricity supply.

“This will serve as a feeder to Nigerian Bacterial Culture Typing Centres (NBCTC), among other applications and benefits,” he maintained.

He said there is a need for constant training of young scholars and a “Train the Trainer policy on technological innovations for national growth and sustainable development.

In conclusion Prof Akinyemi stated  that his lecture has been able to reveal widespread environmental contamination, point-of-care diagnostics, transmission pathways of Salmonella and other bacterial enteropathogens that exhibited multiple antibiotic resistance mechanisms: from plasmids to ESBLs, carbapenemase and AmpC.

He maintained that it has also validated some indigenous medicinal plants as promising alternatives to the growing, emerging and re-emerging MDR pathogenic bacteria, adding that these efforts shaped policy, infrastructure and public health strategies in Nigeria.

He said, “Our war with microbes is perpetual and the future depends on research and innovation with capacity building for young researchers.

“Therefore, a need for sustained genomic surveillance, establishment of Nigerian Culture-Typing Centre, vaccine rollout, low-cost diagnostics, water disinfection, and climate-health modeling will bring a balance towards coexistence and resilience between humans and itsy-bitsy animalcules,” he stated.