Since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in February, his name has been on the mouth of many Lagosians. Everybody talks about this tall & slim medical doctor called Prof. Akin Abayomi. Of course, by virtue of his job as Lagos State Health Commissioner, he is at the vanguard of the battle to fight Covid-19.
He has earned his spurs because he is on top of his game. He knows his onions. He is a specialist. And he has a way he talks and delivers his lines that makes you want to always listen to him and believe whatever he says.
Professor Akin Abayomi is a specialist in Internal Medicine, Haematology, Biosecurity, Environmental Health and Human Development. He received his First degree in Medicine at the Royal Medical College of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in the University of London, with a fellowship from both Royal College of Medicine and Pathology in the United Kingdom and the College of Medicine of South Africa.
His focus has been mainly on the concept of emerging infectious diseases and the development of laboratory and clinical capacity in Africa.
Professor Abayomi was the Chief Pathologist and Head of the Division of Haematology at the University of Stellenbosch’s Faculty of Medicine Science in 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa. He was also a Consultant at the University of West Indies and the University of Zimbabwe. He has been exposed to a vast variety of geographical variations and disease patterns within the field of Internal Medicine having worked in diverse countries of the world.
Akin Abayomi was the Chair of the H3Africa Consortium Data and Biospecimen Access Committee, as well as the Founder of the Global Emerging Pathogen Consortium which was entrenched at the peak of the Ebola outbreak to address Biosecurity concerns in Africa. He was a Consultant to the Lagos State Biosecurity and Genomics Project in 2014. He was a member of the Board and Honorary Professor to the Center for Biosecurity Studies, University of the West Indies. Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, Caribbean. (2018), as well as a Professor of Medicine at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research in Lagos, Nigeria (2018),
Akin Abayomi was a member of the African Academy of Science Committee on Data Governance and also the Lead Consultant on the Biobank, Biosecurity and Biodata Rescue project in Sierra Leone and Lagos Nigeria. He is consulting for the Lagos State Biosecurity project and the West Africa Health Organisation Biosecurity and Biobanking framework to service the ECOWAS member. Professor Akin Abayomi is now the Honourable Commissioner for Health in Lagos State, Nigeria under the administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Professor Akinola Abayomi is an experienced and versatile Medical Doctor who has served as a lecturer and practitioner in Africa as well as the West Indies and written numerous research publications on Cancer, Diabetes and Sickle Cell Anaemia.
Aged 60 years, he obtained a MBBS degree from the University of London, the United Kingdom in 1983 and a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) in Ecology and Environmental Health Management from the University of Pretoria, South Africa in 2006.
Prior to obtaining his MPhil, Dr. Akinola Abayomi was a Consultant Haematologist and Lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe Medical School and Harare Group of Teaching Hospitals, Zimbabwe between 1994 and 1998. He was also Chief Physician at the Princess Marina Hospital, Gabarone, Botswana in 1998.
A Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (2010) and the Royal College of Pathologists of the United Kingdom (2013), Dr. Abayomi was the Consultant Haematologist, Faculty of Medicine & Research, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, University of West Indies, Bridgetown, Barbados from 1998-2006.
Between 2006 and 2008, he was a Bone Marrow Transplant Research Fellow at the University of Stellenbosch as well as a Consultant Clinical Haematologist, Constantiaberg Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, Tygerberg Academic Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa.
Dr. Abayomi held sway as Head of Division, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa between 2009 and 2017.
Before he became a Commissioner he was a Professor of Medicine at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Yaba. He has held various positions in the field of medicine including Consultant, Lagos State Biosecurity and Genomic Project, Lead Consultant to the West African Health Authority (WAHO), ECOWAS and President, Federation of South African Society of Pathology among others.
He is turned 60 early this month on July 5.
