By Peter Dansu
Growing global concern over infectious diseases such as hantavirus has triggered renewed debate about whether Nigeria’s data protection laws are strong enough to support rapid pandemic research during public health emergencies.
A health law researcher and Chief Executive Officer of Bioclinix Medical Diagnostic Centre, Isaac Olatunde, has warned that certain provisions in the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 could unintentionally slow down scientific response efforts when speed is most needed to save lives.
Olatunde raised the concern amid increasing international attention on emerging infectious diseases and the urgent need for countries to strengthen outbreak preparedness, data sharing, and medical research systems.
The Nigeria Data Protection Act, signed into law to regulate the processing of personal data, has been praised for improving privacy protection and aligning Nigeria with international standards similar to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR.
However, Olatunde believes the law creates an uneven system during public health emergencies.
According to him, the Act grants special exemptions to government agencies and “competent authorities,” allowing them to process personal data with fewer restrictions during emergencies. While these provisions are designed to support swift government intervention during disease outbreaks, independent researchers are not clearly given the same emergency flexibility.
He warned that such limitations could weaken Nigeria’s overall pandemic response capacity.
“In a public health emergency, delays in accessing data translate directly into delays in analysis and response,” Olatunde said.
“When independent researchers are slowed down by legal constraints while government agencies are not, the overall scientific response becomes fragmented and less effective.”
He explained that during the COVID-19 pandemic, independent scientists and medical researchers played vital roles in epidemiological modelling, diagnostics development, data analysis, and clinical support. Yet, many of them reportedly faced difficulties accessing critical health data quickly enough to contribute effectively at scale.
Olatunde stressed that the issue is not about opposing data privacy protections, but about ensuring a balance between protecting citizens’ personal information and enabling urgent scientific research during emergencies.
He argued that independent researchers working under ethical approval and proper oversight should also benefit from carefully controlled emergency exemptions.
According to him, such safeguards could include mandatory ethical clearance, strict data minimisation policies, anonymisation of sensitive information where possible, and time-limited access tied specifically to officially declared public health emergencies.
Public health experts have increasingly warned that modern outbreak response depends on collaboration between government institutions, universities, laboratories, private researchers, and healthcare organisations. Any legal framework that slows one part of that network, they argue, could reduce the effectiveness of the entire response system.
The Nigeria Data Protection Commission, which is responsible for implementing and enforcing the law, is expected to play a major role in determining how emergency data access is handled during future disease outbreaks.
Stakeholders are now calling for clearer emergency research guidelines that would allow faster access to critical health data during pandemics without compromising personal privacy rights.
Although hantavirus has not emerged as a direct public health threat in Nigeria, experts say the growing global attention surrounding infectious disease preparedness highlights the need for Nigeria to strengthen both its legal and scientific response structures before another major outbreak occurs.
For Olatunde, the message is clear: Nigeria’s readiness for the next pandemic may depend not only on hospitals, laboratories, and surveillance systems, but also on whether its laws can allow science and medical research to move quickly when lives are at stake.
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