Intergenerational dialogue on life-course immunization

AfriWon Chair Dr Ibrahim Banaru Abubakar joins WFPHA’s intergenerational dialogue on life-course immunization

Dr Ibrahim Banaru Abubakar, Chair of AfriWon Renaissance (2025–2027), recently represented African family medicine in a World Federation of Public Health Associations webinar on life-course immunization, contributing to an intergenerational global dialogue on prevention, policy, and the future of primary care.

On 27 April 2026, the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) hosted the webinar Life-Course Immunization: Policy Innovation and Implementation Beyond Child, bringing together international experts to discuss how countries can strengthen vaccination across all stages of life. The webinar was the second in a two-part series on life-course immunization, shifting the conversation from scientific foundations towards policy innovation, implementation science, and sustainable financing.

Among the featured speakers was Dr Ibrahim Banaru Abubakar, a Consultant Family Physician and Clinical Governance Specialist at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria. He is Chair of AfriWon Renaissance for the 2025–2027 term and serves as AfriWon Representative on the WONCA Africa Region Executive Committee, reflecting his growing leadership role within the movement for young and future family physicians in Africa.

A particularly notable feature of the webinar was its intergenerational design. It brought emerging public health professionals into dialogue with experienced global leaders in order to foster practical, forward-looking, and inclusive strategies for life-course immunization. This framing resonates strongly with AfriWon’s mission to nurture the next generation of family physicians through leadership development, collaboration, and meaningful engagement in regional and global conversations.

The subject of the webinar is highly relevant to family medicine. Health systems are increasingly challenged by demographic change, respiratory infections, HPV-related cancers, misinformation, and growing pressure on primary care services. In this context, life-course immunization is not only a public health concern, but also a practical primary care issue requiring trusted, person-centred, and community-based platforms for prevention across adolescence, adulthood, and healthy ageing.

Dr Banaru’s participation also reflects the strategic direction of AfriWon Renaissance for 2025–2027, with priorities centred on Research Partnerships, Training and Mentorship, and Global and Rural Initiatives. These priorities are consistent with AfriWon’s work on research capacity, mentorship, collaboration, and the strengthening of evidence-based primary care among young family physicians across Africa. Recent AfriWon activities have focused on building research skills, developing mentorship pathways, supporting publication and grant writing, and fostering collaboration across institutions and countries.

In that sense, the webinar was more than a speaking engagement. It projected AfriWon as a movement whose leaders can contribute confidently to global conversations while remaining rooted in the realities of primary health care in Africa. It also demonstrated how African young doctor leadership can engage across generations, learning from established experts while also offering grounded experience from family medicine, health systems, and community-based care.

For WONCA, AfriWon, and the wider family medicine community, Dr Ibrahim Banaru Abubakar’s contribution is an encouraging example of leadership in action: outward-looking, policy-aware, prevention-oriented, and committed to stronger primary care systems. It is also a reminder that the future of family medicine in Africa will be shaped not only by local service and training, but also by how confidently its emerging leaders participate in international dialogue and collaboration.

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