Founded in 1977 from the colonial Yaba Medical Research Laboratory (1920), the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Yaba holds the federal mandate for biomedical research. Its molecular-epidemiology programmes are the longest continuous Nigerian-institutional surveillance series.
On HIV: NIMR's collaboration with the Walter Reed-NIMR HIV programme characterised the predominant Nigerian HIV-1 subtypes as the circulating recombinant form CRF02_AG, with substantial sub-subtype A and G populations — distinct from the East African (subtype C) and global (subtype B) epidemics. The subtype distribution informed Nigerian first-line ART choices and the design of the NACA-led national response.
On malaria: NIMR runs the Nigerian arm of the WHO Pfkelch13 mutation surveillance for artemisinin partial resistance — the markers that triggered the global shift from chloroquine to ACTs in the 2000s and that, since 2021, have been detected in East African populations. The published Nigerian work (so far) has not detected high-frequency *Pfkelch13* C580Y or R561H markers.
The institute is also one of Nigeria's principal venues for tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, and onchocerciasis surveillance, and runs an HIV mother-to-child transmission clinical programme out of its Lagos campus.