Hideyo Noguchi’s sense of mission lives on in Ghana

Hideyo Noguchi is the figure printed on the one thousand Japanese yen bill. About 100 years ago he went to Ghana without his family and devoted himself to research on yellow fever. Unfortunately, he came down with this disease and his life ended in Ghana. To praise his achievement, the NMIMR was built as a basic medical research institute, with grant aid from Japan.

After completion of the NMIMR, JICA supported basic medical research in Ghana from the bottom up, by implementing technical cooperation projects on the prevention of several infections. Today, the NMIMR has developed to the point of engaging in cooperative research with other research institutions, and also having exchanges with Japanese universities.

Since 2010, together with Tokyo Medical and Dental University and Nagasaki International University, the NMIMR has been working on a project called “Studies of Anti-viral and Anti-parasitic Compounds from Selected Ghanaian Medicinal Plants,” which is a scientific cooperative project under the Science and Technology Research Partnership (SATREPS) between JICA and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). With the completed projects, JICA has sent experts to Ghana with the cooperation of Japanese universities, while a number of Ghanaian researchers went to Japan to obtain master’s degrees or doctoral degrees.

William Kwabena Ampofo, professor, head of Virology Department of the NMIMR, completed his doctorates at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University. He acts as an adviser for the emergency committee of the World Health Organization Ebola disease. And he is also offering technical support for Guinea, where Ebola has spread widely.