He was appointed[2] to this role in September 2021 by President Muhammadu Buhari[3] to replace Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu[4] who was the head of the agency since August 2016.
[5] Before his appointment as Director-General, he was Clinical Epidemiologist, Epidemiology & Demography Department, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP), Kilifi, Kenya[6] and an Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
[7][8] In 2004, Adetifa advanced to work as a Research Clinician and subsequently as a Clinical Epidemiologist at the Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia (MRCG), carrying out investigations largely on Tuberculosis Epidemiology and Immuno-epidemiology studies including clinical investigation aimed at expounding the correlates of disease and protection in TB and identifying surrogates of treatment efficacy.
[10][11] In 2014, Adetifa joined the LSHTM and KWTRP following the completion of his fellowship program, there his research focused on the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases aims to generate evidence for vaccine policy in developing countries especially of tropical Africa.
[12] Adetifa implemented disease and Serological surveillance, examined approaches to monitoring vaccination, conducted vaccine impact studies, performing health economic evaluations, and complemented all these with scientific concept.