# Catherine Falade

Catherine Olufunke Falade (née Falodun) is a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics and also the director of the Institute for Advanced Medical Research & Training at the College of Medicine at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. She is also a healthcare practitioner specializing as a pharmacologist at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. Her research interest focuses on malaria in children. She collaborates with the Malaria Control Units of both the State and Federal Ministries of Health.

## Quotes

* Access to the right medicine will go a long way in assisting to stem the malaria scourge and drug manufacturers should also stick to the WHO recommended manufacturers standard.
* A pharmaceutical error can wipe out a generation of people, so there is need for government to sanction producers of counterfeit malaria drugs.
* More researches should be encouraged for non-communicable disease like malaria while rational and acceptable use of recommended drug should be encouraged.
** 2017
* The malaria vaccine reduces prevalence, morbidity, and mortality from malaria attacks; the concern is that people take three antigens and then take the vaccines.
* The vaccines only reduce the risks of malaria by 35 per cent; it does not prevent malaria like other vaccines that babies take at birth for prevention of communicable diseases.
* The masses in Nigeria, particularly at the grassroots, need to be properly informed about this. Otherwise, Nigerians will read another meaning into the efforts of government and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
** 2017
* Nigerians find faults easily in government policies and efforts geared towards their welfare.
* They should be informed by healthcare givers, community centres, the media and all stakeholders that what the vaccine does is to reduce the attack of malaria and not to totally prevent it.
** 2017
* New researches are on-going to develop new antimicrobial medicines and vaccines to tackle malaria- resistance, which has now become a burden to public health
* Antibiotic resistance is present in every country. Patients with infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria are at risk of worse clinical outcomes and death.
** 2018
* Whether you are working at a COVID-19 centre or not, all of us are exposed to the virus. Patients come in for acute surgical operation, without even knowing they have COVID-19. But when we check for signs and symptoms, we get to discover they are positive.
* I am even talking about pregnant women in labour who have COVID-19. That’s why I said everybody in the hospital is exposed and needs to take precaution.
* When some people are told they have COVID-19 after the laboratory test, they will say ‘It is not my portion’ and hide the result. They will come and start complaining again, hoping the doctor will come to a different conclusion.
** Interview with Punch Healthwise pointing out how increasingly difficult it is for health workers to avoid getting exposed to the virus. 2021
* Secondly, some patients have COVID-19 and won’t want the health workers to screen them. They want immediate attention. The health care workers are human beings too. But as much as possible, we are making efforts to ensure that everybody gets attended to. But we must take precaution.
** Disclosing that some patients even refuse to accept their COVID-19 result. 2021
* It is important for the populace to know that malaria has no particular signs and symptoms. The signs and symptoms you get in malaria are the same as what you will get in any infection like pneumonia, hepatitis, or some other viral infection. Even with a boil that is not in a very visible place, there could be a fever, headache, as well as aches and pains. It thus becomes important that malaria diagnosis is confirmed by laboratory diagnosis using malaria rapid diagnostic test or quality-assured microscopy.
** 2022
* Any patient that is positive for malaria on the rapid diagnostic test should be treated with an efficacious drug and that is Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) and not chloroquine. Chloroquine has failed. Many adults will tell you chloroquine works for malaria. But that is because chloroquine has an anti-inflammatory effect and so the aches and pains will go. Chloroquine also has fever-lowering effects which also makes the patient feel better as the fever resolves at least for a while as he/she will not feel febrile but the parasites are still swimming in the blood and growing because the parasites have developed resistance to it.
* A lot of the adults say chloroquine works because they had never had malaria to start with. They were probably stressed or tired from too much work or a hectic lifestyle. So, instead of resting, they conclude that they have malaria and then go ahead to take chloroquine before retiring to bed. By the time they have slept for a day or two, they feel fine, and they assume that they had malaria that chloroquine cured.
** 2022
* The poor masses are also affected due to ineffective and costly way of treatment, which cannot be afforded by the parents.
** Catherine speaking on the effect of costly treatment
* RTS, S/AS01 is the most advanced vaccine against the most deadly form of human malaria –Plasmodium falciparum.
* More than 20 other vaccine constructs are currently being evaluated in clinical trials or are at an advanced pre-clinical development.
* In July 2015, the European Medicines Agency issued a positive scientific opinion on the vaccine’s risk-benefit balance.
* In October 2015, two independent WHO advisory groups recommended the pilot implementation of RTS, S/ASO1 in parts of three to five sub-Saharan African countries.
* WHO has adopted these recommendations and is strongly supportive of the need to proceed with the pilots as the next step for the world’s first malaria vaccine.
* RTS, S/AS01 is being assessed as a complementary malaria control tool that could potentially be added to and not replace the core package of proven malaria preventive, diagnostic and treatment measures.
* They should be informed by healthcare givers, community centres, the media and all stakeholders that what the vaccine does is to reduce the attack of malaria and not to totally prevent it
* They consume more health-care resources than patients infected with non-resistant strains of the same bacteria.
* As at July 2016, resistance to the first –line treatment for P. falciparum malaria(Artemisinin-based combination therapies also known as (ACTs), has been confirmed in five countries of the Greater Mekong sub –region. The Greater Mekong sub-region include Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
* The spread of resistant strains to other parts of the world, including Nigeria, has now become a major public health challenge.
* I call for coordinated action globally to minimise the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance to malaria and all countries need national action plans for malaria-resistant drugs.