Riversman Wins Canadian Award On Health

An indigene of Rivers State and Research Fellow at the Institute of Human Virology, Dr. Sally Nneoma Akarolo-Anthony, has won a Canadian Government grant for innovation in health.

The award is given by Grand Challenges Canada, a Canadian government funded agency which provides grant to 51 innovators in 18 developing countries to pursue bold, creative ideas to tackle health problems in these countries.

The Rivers State born contributed as Principal Investigator of the Active pair Study – a bold and innovative idea which involves the use of modern cell phone based technology and phone apps to combat obesity in Africa and the rest of the world.

Her creativity earned her a special place as she was selected amongst 250 applicants to receive an initial $100,000 grant which will enable her to develop these innovations. Subsequently, she is eligible for an additional scale-up funding of $1 million.

Before the award, the Ikwerre- born medical expert had been discovered by the Rivers State Government during which she was supported to study abroad.

A graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and the London School of Tropical medicine and Hygiene, Dr Akarolo-Anthony is a Fogarty International Center/National Institutes of Health Research Trainee, working on developing tools for Nutrition Epidemiology research in Nigeria and is currently doing a post-doctoral at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston Massachusetts, where she is studying the role of nutrition in non-communicable diseases, such as stroke.

WHO projects that globally by 2015 about 2.3 billion adults will be overweight; more than 700 million will be obese – an epidemic growing fastest in developing countries and leading to diseases like type 2 diabetes, cancers, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke.

In Nigeria, where mobile phone use is now common (use in Nigeria rose almost 1,300% in 2010 – 11), health researchers led by Dr. Akarolo-Anthony will work with a high-tech firm to create a smart phone app to provide a virtual mentor and online buddy system.

Some functions of the app include computation of user’s metabolic rate and caloric requirement, offer healthy diet tips, estimation of daily calorie intake required to meet a weight-loss goal, and monitoring of change over time.