Gladys Kalibbala
10 October 2008
Kampala — TOP bosses of Uganda's leading medical research organ are locking horns over a malaria project sponsored by the President's office.
The project, launched in March at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) in Entebbe, focuses on using a bushy plant locally known as oluwoko or phytolaccai, to reduce malaria.
Dr. Miph Musoke, deputy director of UVRI heads the project, which is trying to establish the best ways to apply the plant to stagnant water in order to curtail mosquito breeding. He, however, accuses the institute's director, Dr. Edward Katongole-Mbidde, of sabotaging his work.
Musoke cites an incident in which the director deployed workmen to uproot his oluwoko plants from a research garden he established 14 years ago at UVRI.
The plants have been relocated to newly created garden, but some dried up soon after transplanting. A new vaccine research laboratory has been constructed in place of the former oluwoko garden.
Musoke said his painstaking efforts to establish a research garden with various varieties of oluwoko have gone to waste as a result. He also wondered why this particular garden was allocated for the vaccine research laboratory yet UVRI has more than 20 hectares.
He adds that some of his research has been disrupted as the plants have been moved to a new area with a different soil composition, thereby removing the consistency required in such experiments.
"It was simply untenable and technically, a disaster as the relocation could not work. How do you expect to find the same type of soil with the same nutrients in that soil?" he asked.
But Katongole-Mbidde said he consulted a botanist who said there was nothing special about this particular oluwoko garden. He dismissed Musoke's assertions, saying he took the necessary precautions before transplanting the oluwoko.
The botanist, he said, recommended in writing that the garden could safely be relocated.
"We are looking after this garden but who said oluwoko has to be tended? Haven't you seen it growing well in the wilderness?" he asked.
He says since the project conducting HIV vaccine trials already had a building near the oluwoko plot, it was sensible to give them an adjacent piece of land and relocate the plants.
The dispute drew the attention of the Deputy Resident District Commissioner for Entebbe, Sarah Bananuka.
She wrote to the President, requesting the health minister to stop UVRI from relocating the garden.
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