President Muhammadu Buhari has granted approval of the tertiary education trust fund to increase the National Research Fund (NRF) to N7.5 billion for the year 2020 from its initial N3 billion.
This was made known by Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, executive Secretary of TETFund, during a retreat in Abuja on Wednesday.
He added that the approval would give an opportunity for the establishment of twelve COVID-19 and related infectious disease Molecular Laboratories.
Bogoro said:
“In addition, the BOT also endorsed and was subsequently approved by the President that six Medical Simulation Research and Clinical Training facilities in six Colleges of Medicine (one in each geopolitical zone) are to be established this year.“Individually, this provided an opportunity for twelve COVID-19 and related infectious disease Molecular Laboratories to be provided (two in each geopolitical zone), thus making TETFund the highest single provider of COVID-19 test Centres in Nigeria.“The BOT also approved that TETFund sponsors some COVID-19 Research proposals to the tune of over N200 million, mainly from Universities and NAFDAC, this being one of the reasons TETFund has recently been made the Secretariat for the Nigeria Covid-19 Research Consortium R&D.”
