Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu: The Nigerian Doctor Leading The Fight Against Coronavirus
Dr Chike Ihekweazu was born to be the director-general of the Nigerian Center for Disease Control.
Born to a Nigerian father who was a doctor and a German mother who was a professor only one year after the civil war in 1971, he learned the importance of service early in life. His mother and father moved to Nsukka after the war to help rebuild the community. He told Nature Research, ‘They had moved there to rebuild the community. Our home was a melting pot for all sorts — her students, his patients — we had a sense that whatever we have, we share’.
Ihekweazu moved to Germany where he received a master’s degree in public health after he had completed medical school at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and subsequently completed his Public Health specialisation in the UK.
After the completion of his fellowship in the UK in 2006, he worked as an epidemiologist at the Health Protection Agency, UK and at the World Health organisation as a consultant. But he soon developed a craving for home after he attended a Ted X event in Tanzania in 2007. He told his closest friend, Ike Anya, a fellow Nigerian public-health specialist in the United Kingdom about this need, and together they began to work towards his first steps back home.
They created a blog (now called Nigeria Health Watch) where they commented on health issues in Nigeria. In one of his 2010 articles, he wrote, ‘Nigeria needs a central, well-resourced centre for infectious disease prevention and control or one day we will pay the price the hard way.’
He didn’t realise at the time that he was one day going to be called to head that centre.
In 2011, he moved to South Africa with his wife and their two children to head the Centre for Tuberculosis at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), Johannesburg. He and his friend, Ike Anya set up EpiAfric, a health-care company that consults for organizations across Africa.
Then one evening in July 2016, he received a call telling him that in the morning, President Muhammadu Buhari would appoint him head of the NCDC. He was first averse to the idea of coming back to Nigeria to head a team when he hadn’t even applied for the job. But he convinced himself and took the position. On November 13, 2018, the NCDC became an independent agency and Ihekweazu was appointed the first Director-General of the agency.
Since he took over the reins of the agency on August 15, 2016, he has battled with Lassa fever, cholera, and yellow fever outbreaks. They even detected the first cases of monkeypox in 40 years. And now, he has worked tirelessly with his team to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The task has been difficult because a lot of Nigerians are not abiding by all of the guidelines that can help slow down the spread of the virus since they cannot afford to. But Dr Chike Ihekweazu does what he can by giving timely updates on the pandemic as well as creating isolation centres in all 36 states of the nation and the FCT and monitoring them.
Dr Chike Ihekweazu is proving to be one of Nigeria’s best health leaders and as his appointment as the Director-General of NCDC ends this year, one can only hope that his successor would be as dedicated as he’s been.
Writer: Mofijesusewa Samuel
Designer: Kume Akpubi
