News Item

We are very pleased to announce that the Editor-in-Chief of The International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, I. Ralph Edwards, was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Science Degree by the University of Benin, Nigeria. We congratulate him on this achievement.

As a past Professor of Medicine at the University of Zimbabwe, he developed his clinical and research interest in the toxicology of chemicals including medicines. Through many more experiences in New Zealand as Director of the National Toxicology Group, he became the Director and CEO of the WHO’s Foundation Centre for International Drug Monitoring in Uppsala (UMC), Sweden.

From the start of his tenure at the UMC the number of countries contributing to the WHO’s Database has grown to around 130 countries globally. Nigeria is one of the countries that has contributed greatly to the global development of better medicines safety. In Africa, Prof. Ambrose Isah was the instigator of pharmacovigilance as a scientific discipline and has been developing a post-graduate course at the University of Benin, which is the first in Africa. Relationships between Prof. Isah, Prof. Emmanuel Okoro (Professor of Medicine at Ilorin University), and the late Prof. Dora Akunyili (Director of the Nigerian National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)) and Prof. Edwards have been very effective. The University of Benin, therefore, decided to bestow the honorary DSc. in recognition of the primary role that Prof. Edwards has taken in the growth of science and the professional practice of the pharmacovigilance international network.