“Ultimately, I have a strong advocacy that we should establish a child health research institute in Ghana. We’ve had Noguchi Memo­rial Institute for Medical Research, and other health research institutes. They are doing exceptionally good work, but it so happens that at times their attention is focused elsewhere,” he said.

Professor Adjei who is also the Director of the Centre for Trop­ical Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics made the call during his inaugural lecture in Accra on Thursday.

Titled: “Paradigms and para­doxes: Enigmas in clinical trials in Ghanaian children”, the lecture was aimed to provide valuable insights into the complexities of pediatric healthcare as well as en­lighten the public on the impact of clinical trials on Ghanaian children.

At the lecture, he stressed the need to invest in children’s health and suggested the establishment of research institute to aid the appro­priate infrastructure and resources for research relating to children.

He defined clinical trial as “Any research that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups in order to determine the causal relationship between the intervention and a specific medical, chemical, biomed­ical, or health outcome.”

Prof. Adjei also advised that every medicine tested generally should also be tested with children to know how it will react with them.

“It is important to note that children are not small adults. They exhibit distinct developmental, and physiological characteristics that differ from adults,” he explained.

This he emphasised the need for rigorous clinical trials in children to ensure the safety and efficacy of medicines, noting lots of medi­cines prescribed for children were used “off-label,” not tested for safety and efficacy in children and as such could increase the risk of adverse effects and perpetuate a culture of anecdotal evidence rath­er than rigorous scientific testing.

Prof. Adjei, therefore, called for increased investment in clinical research and training, situated in culturally relevant contexts, and reiterated the need for the establishment of a child health research institute.

Speaking on the importance of clinical trials in children, he highlighted the challenges of conducting phar­macokinetic studies in children, particularly in obtaining multiple blood samples from young patients.

To address this challenge, he said it was needful to use popula­tion pharmacokinetics- a technique that enables researchers to conduct pharmacokinetic studies in chil­dren without requiring multiple blood samples.

Expressing concern about the current regulatory framework for the safe and effective conduct of clinical trials, he reiterated the establishment of a child health research institute in Ghana.