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Army Doctor on Technology Transfer Mission

Colonel Oviemo Ovadje, Nigeria's renowned Military Medical Doctor and inventor, has left the country on a mission to fulfil his desire to see Nigeria acquire the know-how for medical manufacturing.

Sources close to the army colonel indicated at the weekend that the first leg of the tour was taking him to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique, all African countries that had since acquired capabilities for medical manufacturing.

The industrial and trade mission, it was understood, would assist the army doctor to further understand modalities for technology from what obtains in Europe, America and the Asian Tigers.

Added to that, it is believed that the Colonel would use the opportunity to introduce his EATSET invention, a blood safety initiative, to the Southern African countries envisaged to possibly provide potential markets for the equipment because of the high level of AIDS and HIV infection in those countries.

From the Southern African countries, Ovadje is expected to proceed to Bombay and Hyderabad, India, also a potential beneficiary of the EATSET, realising her large population and medical climate of a developing country. He would in addition, seal up agreements with his international research collaborators and dispensers of technology in India before leaving for the United States (US) for consultations with the Emergency Care Research Institute, Plymouth Meeting.

The Colonel, who had always argued that Nigeria has no option but to acquire appropriate medical manufacturing know-how if it is to run an efficient health care system, maintained in an interview with Newsline in London recently that Nigeria has the capacity to break the technological myth of the advanced world because of its abundant human and material resources.

According to him, 55-75 percent of component parts used in industries, health and educational equipment were plastic and rubber based with which Nigeria is abundantly blessed. Recently in Indonesia for the G-15 exhibition in Jakarta, Ovadje is promoting the EATSET invention worldwide. Lectures on the equipment have been given in 35 locations worldwide while its patents and trademarks have been registered in nine countries.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognized the Dr. (Col.) Ovadje's efforts a Nigeria's major contribution to its global blood safety initiative in May 2000 at the United Nation (UN) Hall Palais de Nation in Geneva, Switzerland, to become the first African winner of the Sasakawa Award. President Olusegun Obasanjo, many other notable Nigerians and organisations such as Arco Petrochemicals and Platinum Bank have also identified with the noble objectives of the /colonel.

The EATSET device was sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) while WHO acted as executing agency.