The Vice-Chancellor of Chrisland University, Abeokuta, Prof. Peace Babalola, on Wednesday, said the country would need two billion dollars each to develop drugs for deadly diseases and viruses like Coronavirus and Lassa Fever, Ebola among others.

The VC who is also a pharmacist was recently conferred with the 2019 edition of the Kwame Nkrumah awards for scientific excellence by the African Union.

She maintained that the country could develop a medicinal cure for the diseases if the government could inject huge fund into research.

The Vice-Chancellor said this at a press briefing held at her office in Abeokuta.

Babalola said Nigeria needed to sponsor centres that are researching on the cure for some of the life-threatening diseases.

She further advised the government to bring stakeholders in the health sector together in solving the health challenges in the country and world at large.

The Vice-Chancellor, however, said there is a need for the government to go beyond detection and diagnosis of some of the diseases like Coronavirus, among others.

She noted that government must sponsor how a detected disease would be cured through a research.

According to her, for us to discover many things, we need to embrace sponsor of some of these centres.

She added,

“we should go beyond detection. As a pharmaceutical scientist, when you study the genetic, properties of a particular disease, we should use it and target medicine and Medicals that can also kill or cure it.

“So, we should go beyond diagnosis, we should empower centres to be able to discover, design and develop.

“We are doing a lot on viruses like Lassa Fever, Ebola, among others.

“It is millions and millions of dollars that you need to develop drugs for diseases.

“It will take two or one billion dollars to get the medicine for a single disease.

“The government should find out a centre and put money in it.

“The government should bring stakeholders together in solving health issues. We have a lot of NGOs, institutes, among others that focus on health issues, such centres should be empowered.“

The Vice-Chancellor also called for more women participation in science.

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Babalola lamented that there are not enough women in science.

She said,

“I am passionate about women empowerment and that is because when the ships are down, women bear a lot of burden in the family.

“Women should be able to stand on their own and provide solution to whatever challenges that they face.

“A woman should be able to take care of herself and others around her. Because of the burden women bear, she needs to be educated and empower.

“There are not enough women in science and at the helm of making decisions that would affect everybody.

“If we promote women in science, they would be able to solve problem and be empowered.”