Dr Muhammed Afolabi is an Associate Professor of Global Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom. He obtained a medical degree from the University of Ibadan in 1999; a master’s degree in Public Health from Obafemi Awolowo University in 2007, and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK in 2015. He underwent specialist training that led to the award of the postgraduate fellowships of the West African College of Physicians and National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria in the Faculty of Family Medicine. He is also a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
Dr Afolabi currently leads a UKRI-funded project that focuses on evaluating the feasibility, safety, acceptability, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of integrating the vertical control programmes for malaria and neglected tropical diseases among a high-risk paediatric population in West Africa. This adventurous project will hopefully lead to the implementation of an increasingly recognized WHO strategy of a paradigm shift from parallel, top-down disease control programmes to integrated, locally relevant, evidence-based, and sustainable child health policies and their delivery. Dr Afolabi also teaches and supervises masters and PhD students on the intersections between malaria and neglected tropical diseases.
Dr Afolabi serves on several high profile committees including the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) Working Group on COVID-19 vaccines, the UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the Independent Diagnostic Adjudication Panel (IDAP) for the ongoing phase 3 trials evaluating the efficacy of R21/Matrix MTM malaria vaccine among 5-17 months old children in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania.
