Department of Virology

Odaibo

Dr. Anyebe B. ONOJA
Ag. Departmental Head

DEPARTMENT OF VIROLOGY

The Department of Virology (formerly Virus Research Laboratory), was established in 1963 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to the University of Ibadan but full research activities began in the laboratory in 1964.

Initially, the laboratory was run principally by the Rockefeller Foundation staff who were secondment to the University of Ibadan. The initial senior staff Establishment of seven was later supplemented by three from the University College Hospital. In 1982, the Laboratory became a fully-fledged Department of the University for the postgraduate training in virology.

The activities of the Department of Virology were initially directed towards the surveillance and study of viruses transmitted to man and animals by insect vectors. Some of the viruses were identical with previously described viruses, while the larger proportion of these isolates were new and hitherto not described in Nigeria, Africa or the world. Eleven of these first in the world viruses were named by the International Committee on Naming and Taxonomy of Viruses after places in Nigeria where samples that yielded the viruses were collected. The viruses include Shamonda virus, Sango virus, Kotonkan virus, Abadina virus, Ife virus, Ilesha virus, Dugbe virus, Sabo virus, Igbo-Ora virus, Potiskum virus and Lassa fever virus.

The Department played a major role in the investigation and confirmation of major epidemics of yellow fever which occurred in 1969, 1973/74 and 1986/87 as well as epidemics of the Lassa fever in Nigeria. The Department was actively involved in the investigation of the 1974 pandemic of influenza, and was accordingly recognized by WHO as one of WHO National Influenza Centres. During the multi-country mpox outbreak 2022-2023 the department played a pivotal role in the WHO Incident Management Team providing technical input for guidelines and Target Product Profiles development for point of care and field-setting test kits. The department also contributed to the development of OpenWHO course materials for Mpox epidemiology and preparedness response in the African settings

In addition to the viruses mentioned above, investigations had been carried out in the Department on influenza, poliomyelitis, African swine fever, measles, HIV/AIDS, HBV, HCV, rubella, avian influenza, dengue and other arboviral fevers.

Research on molecular epidemiology of HIV (1985 to date) in the Department has led to the discovery of a new variant of the virus (HIV -1 1bNg – for Ibadan) in Nigeria. The virus was later found to be the predominant strain of HIV 1 in the West and Central African sub-Regions. The virus is now the prototype strain for development of HIV vaccine for West Africa. The project has also led to detection and distribution pattern of the circulating HIV-1 subtypes in Nigeria as well as the pattern of HIV drug polymorphism and resistance to HIV drugs in the country. Data from these HIV research projects in the Department have impacted policy on HIV testing protocol and drug combination strategies for use in the country.

The Ibadan National Polio laboratory has been handling isolation and stereotyping of polioviruses from Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) specimens collected from all the states of the Federation since 1998 and since year 2005 the laboratory has been carrying out the intratypic differentiation test of the isolated viruses from the Federal Capital territory and 26 states of Nigeria into Wild and Sabin. This information is used to guide the immunization programme in Nigeria which is an integral part of the global polio eradication initiative.

So far, the laboratory has isolated the following number of wild polio viruses

Year 2005 = 580 WPVs

Year 2006 = 448 WPVs

Year 2007 = 145 WPVs

Year 2008 = 452 WPVs

Year 2009 = 259 WPVs

Year 2010 = 27 WPVs

Year 2011 = 32 WPVs

Year 2012 = 65 WPVs

Year 2013 = 5 WPVs (As at 16/08/2013)

All the above wild polioviruses have been sequenced and put on the tree of life in the custody of the World Health Organization in Geneva. The polioviruses in Nigeria belong to the genotype WEAFB. In addition, Ibadan Polio laboratory has also detected some vaccine derived polioviruses (having >1% nucleotide sequence divergence from the Sabin parental strain) from AFP samples.

The Polio Laboratory in the Department of Virology has been accredited by the WHO as a regional sequencing laboratory and has performed sanger sequencing and reported over 800 sequences that were isolated between March and July 2025 to the Nigerian Ministry of Health and the WHO for implementation of the Global Polio Eradication Programme.

The Department of Virology, University of Ibadan is designated as WHO reference Centre’s for arboviruses and influenza, the National Polio Laboratory, HIV Reference Laboratory and recently Avian Influenza Reference laboratory in Nigeria.

On teaching, the Department has been very active in undergraduate and postgraduate training of medical, dental and microbiology students, postgraduate Physicians, Masters/Ph.D students and post-doctoral candidates. To date, the Department has produced 28 Ph.D. and about 250 Master’s graduates in virology.

Current Head of Department

Dr. Onoja A. Bernard

Past Heads of Department

Prof. R.O Causey 1962 -1968

Prof. E.D. Carey 1968-1973

Prof. A. Fabiyi 1973-1979

Prof. TAM David-West 1979-1984

Prof. O. Tomori 1984-1986, 1991-1993

Prof. A.H. Fagbami 1987-88, 1994

Prof. O.D. Olayele 1994-1996, 1998-2001, 2004-2008

Prof. F.D. Adu 1996-1998, 2001-2004

Dr. J.A. Adeniji 2008 – 2011

Dr. Georgina N. Odaibo 2012 - 2014, 2021- 2023

Dr. Adedayo O. Faneye 2023-2025

STAFF

The Department has 9 academic staff comprising one Professor, one Reader, four Senior Lecturers, three Lecturers, 15 technical and over 30 project staff.

Teaching and research facilities

There are 8 laboratories for Tissue culture, Serology, Molecular Virology, HIV and NeuroAIDS, Polio, Environmental surveillance, and Viral Zoonoses Arbovirus Emerging Virus (ZAE Lab), There is a classroom, a reading room and two seminar rooms for undergraduate and postgraduate students training.

RESEARCH GRANTS

STEP-B Project- Professor O.D. Olaleye (Principal Investigator), Prof. Georgina Odaibo (Co-Investigator)
Dr. Adewumi M.O. (Role: Principal Investigator) University of Ibadan Senate Research Grants (SRG/COM/2010/14^A). Epidemiology and Molecular Characterization of some Viruses Implicated in Maternal and Infant Morbidity in Nigeria (Budget Period 2012 –2015).
Dr. Adewumi M.O. (Role: Co-Investigator) AstraZeneca Research Trust Grant. Contribution of Saffold Virus to Acute Flaccid Paralysis of Unknown Origin in Nigeria (Budget period 2014 –2016).
Dr. Opayele VA and Dr. Olayinka OA (Mentees) National Institute of Health (NIH) linked Medical Education Partnership Initiative in Nigeria (MEPIN) Year 04 Mentored Seed Award from the Fogarty International Centre (2014).
Dr. Adedayo O. Faneye, Dr. BA Olusola (Principal Investigators): College of Medicine, University of Ibadan Mentored Research Grant for Junior Academic Staff (2014).
Dr. Opayele V.A. (Role: Mentee), College of Medicine, University of Ibadan Mentored Research Grant for Junior Academic Staff (2014). Project: Isolation and phylogeny of rift valley fever virus from mosquitoes, ruminants and livestock workers in Oyo and Osun states, Nigeria.
Dr. Adewumi M.O. (Role: Co-Investigator) TETFund Research Grant. Generation of baseline or reference indigenous enterovirus full genome sequence data set for future surveillance and disease association studies in Nigeria (Budget period 2017-2018).
Dr. Onoja A.B., Dr. Adedayo O. Faneye (Role: Mentees) D43TW010140 Grant award to David Olufemi Olaleye (Mentor) for the University of Ibadan Medical Education Partnership Initiative Junior (UI-MEPI-J) Year 02 training award sponsored by the National Institutes of Health through Fogarty International Centre.
Dr. Opayele V.A. (Role: Mentee) D43TW010140 Grant award to David Olufemi Olaleye (Mentor) for the University of Ibadan Medical Education Partnership Initiative Junior (UI-MEPI-J) Year 04 training award sponsored by the National Institutes of Health through Fogarty International Centre.
Onoja A.B. (Role: Co-Principal Investigator) Northwestern University Global Health Catalyzer Fund and Northwestern University Global Health Initiative award supported by Northwestern Medicine Primary and Specialty Care for the development of an automated, improved and simplified HIV Drug Resistance Assay Using Full Genome Sequencing (Budget period: 2018).
Dr. Adewumi M.O. (Role: Subrecipient Investigator). Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Institute for Global Health COVID-19 Research Catalyzer Award for ‘Plasma and PBMC Repository to Elucidate the Immune and Cytokine Profile of SARS-CoV-2 Infected Nigerians (Budget period: 2020-2021).
Dr. Adewumi M.O. (Role: Subrecipient Investigator). Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Institute for Global Health COVID-19 Research Catalyzer Award to study ‘Phylodynamics and Molecular Epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Nigeria (Budget period: 2020-2021)
C-THAN- Dr. Adedayo O. Faneye (Co-Principal investigator): HIV RT-LAMP Assay development (Budget period: 2022-2026).
Prof. Georgina N. Odaibo (Principal Investigator): TETFUND (Budget period: 2023)
Prof. Georgina N. Odaibo (Principal Investigator). Mastercard for the PROVE Project (Budget period: 2024).
Dr. Adedayo O. Faneye (Principal Investigator) UK NRF for Training of community health care workers on research (Budget period: 2024).
Dr. Adewumi M.O. (Role: Research Fellow in Ronald Swanstrom’s Laboratory). NIH/ Fogarty International Center 5D43TW009608. Multidisciplinary NeuroAIDS Research Training to Improve HIV Outcomes in Nigeria to develop skilled, multidisciplinary researchers and outstanding research support staff, ensuring emergence of broad and integrated NeuroAIDS expertise at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Budget period: 2023).
Dr. Adewumi M.O. (Role: Principal Investigator). NIH Grant to NU to study A Network and Viral Phylodynamics Substudy of the Intensive Combination Approach to Rollback the Epidemic (iCARE) in Nigerian Adolescents (Budget period: 2019-2023).
Dr. Onoja A.B. (Co-Investigator): The Centre for Dryland Agriculture Bayero University Kano Research grant for the Molecular Epidemiology of Orf virus in Northern Nigeria to support vaccine research (Budget period: 2024-2025).