Pharmacist and authority on traditional medicine. Born in Blendio, Mali, on Jan 1, 1956, he died of a brain tumour in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, on June 7, 2021, aged 65 years.

Although Drissa Diallo spent most of his working life in the Malian capital Bamako, he was born in a remote farming village in the southern part of his country. “His mother was interested in traditional medicine in various types of illness”, says Berit Paulsen, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacognosy in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Oslo, Norway, and a collaborator and friend of Diallo. “He grew up with his mother teaching him how to use plants.” These informal childhood lessons clearly made an impression because Diallo went on to study pharmacy at the then University of Bamako. This exposure to the science of drug therapy could have led to him turning his back on the traditional remedies with which he had become familiar. In fact, even before finishing his training, he resolved to use the science he had learned to improve those remedies.

Another of Diallo's collaborators was Merlin Willcox, Academic Clinical Lecturer in Primary Care at the University of Southampton, UK, and an occasional colleague since 2004. “He took very much the scientific approach. Let's evaluate it, see what works, and then see if we can develop improved traditional medicines”, says Willcox. Diallo's efforts paid off; he rose to become head of the Department of Traditional Medicine at the University of Bamako, its Professor of Pharmacognosy, and, in due course, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy. His successor in that last role, Professor Sekou Bah, comments that besides building up research on traditional medicine in Mali, Diallo also recognised the importance of its practitioners. “He organised traditional healers into their own association.”

Along with Willcox, Paulsen, and others, Diallo practised what they described as “reverse pharmacology”, in which population-wide studies were used to find out what plants local people were actually using to treat illness, and which had some effect. “That's how we came across a plant called Argemone mexicana that appeared to be associated with good outcomes [in uncomplicated malaria]…This led to observational clinical trials…and then to a randomised controlled trial”, Willcox explains. Argemone is not as effective as modern medicines, Willcox admits. “But it's more effective than nothing, especially in a context where often there is nothing else.” Diallo developed a section of the Malian national formulary devoted to traditional medicines that had passed safety and efficacy testing. Diallo's university department not only did the research but actually produced some of the medicines. Another of his interests was the EU-funded Multi-disciplinary University Traditional Health Initiative (MUTHI). Between 2011 and 2014 MUTHI aimed to boost African public health through building sustainable plant research capacity.

Diallo acquired his basic pharmacy degree from the University of Bamako in 1982, followed it up with an MSc in 1991, and 7 years later a further MSc, this one on medical plants, from the University of Oslo. By this time he was well established on the staff of the University of Bamako's Department of Traditional Medicine. Under the supervision of the universities of Oslo and Lausanne, he went on to complete a pharmacognosy PhD in 2000. Back in Bamako he became head of the Department of Traditional Medicine, was granted his chair in pharmacognosy in 2004, and the Vice-Deanship in 2006. His final post, from 2016 to 2019, was his most influential. As Secretary General of the Malian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, he was one of the country's top civil servants with wide-ranging responsibilities. “In this position he was the main organiser of policies on higher education and research”, says Bah. But Diallo's core enthusiasm remained in pharmacognosy and phytotherapy, topics on which he lectured almost to the end of his career at what had become, since 2007, the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB).

Bah describes Diallo as “a very humble, very honest person”. Paulsen adds that one of the keys to his success was his ability to engender trust. Willcox remembers Diallo as “quiet, extremely friendly…and easy to engage in conversation…He was very rigorous in paying attention to detail in making sure that things were done properly.” Willcox also talks of Diallo's commitment to work. “He inspired a whole generation of researchers in Mali to take up his kind of study.” Diallo is survived by his wife, Aminata, and by children, Rokia, Kadiatou, Coumba, Fatoumata, Mohamadou, and Sarata.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01461-6

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