Abayomi warns Lagos of pandemic flu threat, advocates One Health approach

By Nehru Odeh

Professor Akin Abayomi, Lagos State Commissioner for Health and one of the key officials who coordinated the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has warned that Lagos must urgently prepare for future biological, environmental and climate-related emergencies, particularly the threat of pandemic influenza.

Abayomi gave the warning on Tuesday while delivering the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the inaugural conference organized by the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Lagos.

The opening ceremony of the conference, with the theme “One Health: Preparing the Next Generation for a Changing World”, was held at the J.F. Ade Ajayi Auditorium. But the three- day conference was organized between 4th and 6th August, 2026.

Speaking on “One Health in a Megacity: Lagos, the Megacity of Africa,” Abayomi said the experience of COVID-19 had demonstrated that health threats could no longer be addressed by hospitals and doctors alone. He said Lagos must adopt an integrated approach that brings together human health, animal health and environmental protection, describing biosecurity as a critical instrument for implementing the One Health approach.

Abayomi gave this warning against the backdrop of the predictions earlier made by Bill Gates and the Center for Health Security in 2017. “Bill Gates in 2017 said the next epidemic could originate using genetically engineered material to create a synthetic version of a virus or a super contagion, a deadly strain of flu.

“We ignore the link between health security and international security at our peril. Epidemiologists say the fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year.

“And they say there is a reasonable probability that the world will experience such an outbreak in the next 10 years. And that was in 2017. We are now in 2026. Did we experience something like that? Yes, we did. In 2019, COVID came along. It affected 700 million people and killed 7 million people worldwide in three years

According to him, the next major pandemic could be more devastating than COVID-19. “The graph indicating the exponential rise of outbreaks caused by very dangerous pathogens is on the rise, and the pathogens that we are really scared of are Lassa fever, Ebola, dengue, yellow fever, multidrug-resistant monkeypox, genetically manipulated pathogens, and this famous agent X.

“But the real one that scares us is pandemic flu, which many predictors say can happen any moment. If you thought COVID was bad, COVID will seem like child’s play compared to pandemic flu,” he warned.

Abayomi noted that pandemic influenza remained one of the health threats with the highest potential impact on Lagos and other densely populated cities, urging governments, scientists and health institutions to strengthen preparedness before another major outbreak occurs, adding that the COVID-19 experience had shown that preparedness could not begin after a pathogen had already spread.

He recalled that Lagos was able to contain Ebola in 2014 because different sectors worked together, stressing that the same principle was applied during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We defeated Ebola in the spaces between sectors,” he said. According to him, Lagos’s success in containing Ebola and responding to COVID-19 demonstrated the importance of collaboration among medical professionals, epidemiologists, environmental experts, government agencies and communities

The commissioner described Lagos as a rapidly expanding coastal megacity facing multiple health and environmental pressures. He said the city’s growing population, urbanisation, industrialisation, international mobility, climate change and dependence on food and livestock from different parts of the country had created complex pathways through which infectious diseases could spread.

Profs Folasade Ogunsola and Akin Abayomi.

He estimated that Lagos currently has between 24 million and 30 million people, while about 70 per cent of Nigeria’s air traffic comes through the state. He also said more than 1,800 truckloads of livestock enter Lagos each month, with daily cattle consumption estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000. These movements, he said, increased human interaction with animals and the environment, thereby heightening the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. “The health threat anywhere in the world is a health threat everywhere,” he said.

Abayomi also warned that climate change was intensifying the risks. He linked desertification, shrinking water resources, flooding, rising temperatures and biodiversity loss to migration, food insecurity, conflict and the emergence of infectious diseases.

The commissioner identified antimicrobial resistance as another major threat confronting Nigeria. He said the inappropriate use of antibiotics and other antimicrobials in humans, livestock and agriculture was creating conditions that allowed microorganisms to develop resistance, adding that resistant pathogens could spread through food, water and environmental contamination, making antimicrobial resistance a problem that required cooperation among doctors, veterinarians, agricultural experts and environmental scientists.

Abayomi also cited Lagos’ malaria experience to illustrate the importance of evidence-based treatment. He said research involving more than 88,000 people across 514 health facilities over nine months showed that only about five per cent of fever cases in the state were caused by malaria. According to him, the finding prompted the state to introduce a policy of “no treatment of malaria without a test.”

He noted that the policy had helped reduce malaria diagnoses among patients presenting with fever at public health facilities from about 60 per cent to five per cent. The commissioner said the initiative was also helping Lagos reduce unnecessary use of antimalarial drugs and improve antimicrobial stewardship.

Abayomi disclosed that Lagos requires about 40,000 doctors but currently has only about 7,000, describing the shortage of health professionals as one of the major challenges confronting the state. He said the situation was compounded by the migration of Nigerian doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals abroad.

To address the problem, he said the state was pursuing what he called a “brain gain” strategy involving the expansion of medical education, recruitment and the creation of better conditions for professionals in the diaspora to return. He said Lagos was expanding medical training through the University of Lagos, Lagos State University and private medical schools. “We are going to start making a lot more medical professionals across the disciplines,” he averred.

The commissioner also called on Nigerian professionals abroad to return home after acquiring additional expertise. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Just ‘japa’ to gain some knowledge and some expertise and ‘japa pada’ ,” he said.

However, the Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, had earlier reaffirmed the commitment of UNILAG to preparing the next generation of scientists and health professionals to tackle emerging global health challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration. She said challenges including climate change, infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance had made the integration of human, animal, plant and environmental health imperative.

“Our world is changing at an unprecedented pace. Climate shifts are reshaping ecosystems; infectious diseases remind us of our sheer vulnerability. Antimicrobial resistance threatens decades of medical progress.

“The boundaries between human, animal and environmental health have never been more closely intertwined. In the face of these challenges, the One Health Approach is not merely a concept, it is a necessity. It reminds us that the health of people, animals, plants, and our shared environment is deeply interconnected,” she maintained.

Ogunsola also said the conference was designed to empower students and early-career researchers, describing them as the future of scientific inquiry. She then urged participants to challenge conventional thinking, collaborate across disciplines and develop solutions capable of safeguarding global health for future generations.

The Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Lagos, Prof. Ganiyu Oyetibo, also stressed the need for a One Health approach to tackle emerging global health challenges, saying the growing interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health requires greater collaboration across disciplines.

Oyetibo said climate change, infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance had exposed the vulnerability of societies and threatened decades of medical progress. He noted that addressing these challenges required researchers and health professionals to break down disciplinary barriers, collaborate and move beyond conventional approaches to finding solutions to complex health problems.

According to him, developing the next generation of researchers, scientists and health advocates was central to the conference, which attracted more than 190 abstracts from participants across 32 institutions in Nigeria. He said the submissions reflected strong participation by undergraduates, postgraduate students and early-career researchers, describing their involvement as evidence that the conference had achieved its objective of nurturing younger professionals.

The Dean then urged participants to connect across disciplines, challenge conventional thinking and collaborate on ideas capable of shaping the future of global health, while calling on experts and mentors to support and guide the next generation of health leaders.