Concerned with the high child mortality rate in Nigeria, Dr. Olu Oduntan of the Village Collier aspired to be a doctor to tackle the issue. In 1961, she graduated from the University of London with a degree in medicine and began her work with a few colleagues in researching a debilitating disease that took many lives in Nigeria: Polio.
She will be honored on Saturday, Jan. 9 at the 13th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Awards Breakfast at Savannah Center. You can learn more about the event, including ticket information, at http://www.mlkcommittee.org/
Oduntan is married to retired physician, Dr. Samuel Oduntan. The couple has resided in The Villages for two years.
When Oduntan embarked on her life’s mission, the two polio vaccines of the time were the Sabin and Salk vaccines, both of which were oral and injection respectively and used worldwide. Comparing the two vaccines to see which would be effective for eradicating polio in Nigeria, Oduntan performed epidemiological and immunological studies as she took blood samples.
“It was a comprehensive study for two years,” she said. After the extensive and independent research, Oduntan and her team finally reached their goal in 1978 and declared that it was the Salk vaccine that would eradicate polio in Nigeria as well as other African countries and places worldwide that had the same poor sanitation conditions as Nigeria.
The breakthrough results garnered worldwide attention and were presented at international conferences and published in medical journals. Because of the research, Oduntan found herself traveling all over the world to countries to present the research.
The research’s results eventually reached Dr. Jonas Salk through a mutual friend and the two doctors began writing each other starting in 1977. He asked for a copy of the published journal that presented the results and commended Oduntan for her work.
It was then in June of 1980 that Oduntan went to a conference in Holland and met Salk in person.
“He was a very nice man, very charismatic,” Oduntan recalled. “I had the pleasure of traveling with him and Dr. Merieux to Lyon, France.”
After her groundbreaking research, Oduntan furthered her education and received numerous postgraduate degrees and professional fellowships. Given a scholarship by the Rockefeller Foundation, she went to the University of California, Berkley and received a degree in public health.
Adding to her list of accolades and accomplishments, Oduntan wrote many medical papers, became the first black African female doctor to attend an international Medical Women’s conference in Brazil in 1974, and the first black to be elected into the Medical Women’s International Association’s Executive as the Vice President for Africa and the Near East.
What is most important to her, Oduntan explained, is that she is a committed Christian and said she “attributes all her victories to God,” acknowledging God in everything she does.
Feeling gracious to have been apart of the research to prove the success of the Salk vaccine, Oduntan explained that a Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan announced the eventual withdrawal of the Sabin vaccine and implementation of the Salk vaccine. Wishing that Salk were alive to witness his victory, Oduntan said she feels honored to be able to witness his vaccine turn out to be the only effective treatment for polio.
