Muhammed Afolabi is a Clinical Associate Professor of Global Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom. He obtained a medical degree from the University of Ibadan in 1999; a master’s degree in Public Health from Obafemi Awolowo University in 2007, and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK in 2015. He underwent specialist training that led to the award of the postgraduate fellowships of the West African College of Physicians and National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria in Family Medicine. He is also a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
Muhammed’s research antecedents were in the EDCTP-funded projects at the Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia, where he led the implementation of vaccine trials for HIV and malaria. He joined the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 2016 to lead the paediatric components of an Ebola vaccine trial in Sierra Leone, the findings of which contributed to the approval by the European Medicines Agency and World Health Organisation of the first Ebola vaccine for children. Dr Afolabi serves on several high profile committees including the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) Working Group on COVID-19 vaccines, the UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the Independent Diagnostic Adjudication Panel for the clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of R21/Matrix M™ malaria vaccine among children in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania. and
Muhammed also served as Expert Evaluator for European health programmes and has authored over 135 peer-reviewed publications, including book chapters and technical reports for international bodies such as WHO SAGE and Nuffield Council. He led multiple national and international projects, and supervised numerous postgraduate theses and training programmes in malaria and neglected diseases.
He currently holds a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship where he is evaluating the feasibility, safety, acceptability, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of integrating the preventive treatment programmes for malaria and neglected tropical diseases among West African children. This project has catalysed a paradigm shift from parallel, top-down disease control programmes to integrated, locally relevant, evidence-based, and sustainable child health policies and their delivery.
Muhammed Afolabi is an Academic Editor of the PLOS Global Public Health journal and Co-Director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of London.