Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, former head of Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control, has urged leaders to give more attention to skin health and include it as part of basic healthcare services.
He said skin health shouldn’t be seen as a minor issue. Instead, it should be treated as a major public health matter linked to fairness, respect, and human rights.
Dr. Adetifa, now the CEO of a medical research organization in Geneva, made this statement during a dermatology conference in Lagos.
He spoke about the serious lack of access to skin care, especially in basic health centers, and how this affects overall health and pandemic readiness.
He shared that skin diseases are one of the top ten causes of disability worldwide, affecting about 4.7 billion people and causing major health impacts.
He pointed out that Africa suffers from both infectious and long-term skin diseases, but skin care is still ignored in health policies and funding.
Sharing his own experience as a young doctor, Dr. Adetifa talked about the problems with career advice and competition between medical specialties in Nigeria. He said better planning is needed to improve public health.
Although he was good at all medical fields, he chose to specialize in children’s health. But looking back, he believes family medicine would have matched his public health interests better.
He said career advice for doctors should highlight the value of every specialty and urged young doctors to think beyond hospitals and focus on community health.
Dr. Adetifa criticized how skin and mental health were ignored during COVID-19 and mpox outbreaks, even though they are important for recovery.
He said health systems should focus less on how many patients doctors see and more on big-picture results like life expectancy and reducing disabilities.
He was concerned that many people around the world can’t get basic medical tests, and the situation is worse in Africa, where tests for most infectious diseases are missing.
He explained that diseases that show up on the skin—like leprosy, mpox, Ebola, and HIV—are important for disease tracking, but they are often overlooked because of poor testing systems.
He said signs on the skin should be included in disease monitoring systems to catch outbreaks early and improve decision-making.
Nigeria lacks enough skin doctors—only about 3 for every million people in many areas. He said skin care can’t rely on dermatologists alone.
He called for skin care training for all frontline health workers, including nurses and community health workers, and said the government should include skin care in basic health services.
Dr. Adetifa urged the government to back up its promises with funding, saying they must make skin health a real priority in the health budget.
He said skin care should be part of Nigeria’s health insurance plans and national health strategies, which are currently outdated or missing in many African countries.
He also supported using digital tools and telemedicine to bring skin care to people in remote areas.
He encouraged researchers to collect more data and report on skin disease cases to help influence health policies.
He said politicians need solid facts and numbers to act, and without proper data, skin care will continue to be ignored.
He urged civil society and patients with chronic skin issues to speak up and help shape health policies, just as HIV and TB communities have done successfully.
On the global level, he said skin health is key to fairness in healthcare.
He said healthy skin is important for dignity and affects a person’s job, education, social life, and mental health.
He added that women and children suffer more from skin diseases, which often lead to shame and social rejection. He also said climate change and migration are making skin problems worse.
Dr. Adetifa encouraged everyone involved in healthcare—doctors, educators, researchers, and leaders—to start seeing skin health as essential, not optional, for Africa’s future.
He said it’s time to treat skin health as a major public health issue and asked Nigerian skin doctors to lead efforts to bring good care to poor and remote areas.
He emphasized that the next ten years should be Africa’s chance to lead the world in fair access to skin health.
He concluded by saying, “Let’s stop seeing dermatology as something only the rich can afford in big city clinics. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we must also care for people in rural areas.”
He urged everyone to help bring skin care to all people in Africa to make the health system fairer.
Dr. Ayesha Akinkugbe, head of the conference planning team, said dermatologists must adapt to growing skin health challenges.
She said the goal of the conference was to bring experts together to share ideas and build partnerships to deliver good skin care across all communities.
The president of the dermatology association, Prof. Dasetima Altraide, said the conference theme, “Dermatology and Global Health – Bridging the Gap,” shows that skin diseases are a global health issue.
He warned that unqualified people are taking over beauty-focused skin care and called for stronger partnerships with medical and regulatory bodies to stop them.
