Nine months after the health minister and a minister of state resigned over corruption charges, the Nigerian government has at last filled the vacant posts.

Pathologist Babatunde Osotimehin, who until last month was the director-general of Nigeria's National Agency for the Control of AIDS, was sworn in on 17 December 2008 as health minister alongside his new minister of state, Aliyu Idi Hong. Osotimehin told Nature that he sees research into infectious diseases as a priority for the country.

Former minister Adenike Grange and her minister of state, Gabriel Aduku, stepped down after a plot to share 300 million Nigerian naira (US$2.2 million) from the ministry's 2007 budget among staff was leaked to the country's anticorruption watchdog. The two, together with more than ten other officials, are now on trial facing 56 counts of fraud between them.