Nigeria’s health security rises by 15% in five-years

A joint team of health experts has said Nigeria’s readiness to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats increased to 54 per cent in 2023 from 39 per cent in 2017.

The team noted that Nigeria’s 54 per cent capacity in public health security in 2023 indicates a 15 per cent rise since 2017.

The health experts spoke in Abuja at the end of the five-day Joint External Evaluation, JEE, for International Health Regulations Core Capacities.

The team noted that in 2023, Nigeria did not score below 50 per cent in any thematic area such as prevention, detection, response, and International health regulations related to hazards and point of entry and border health.

Senior Adviser of the World Health Organisation Global JEE Secretariat, Dr Hendrick Ormel, said Nigeria made a lot of progress to have moved to 54 per cent, but noted that a lot still needs to be done.

“It is necessary that the food will be safer to eat. A lot needs to be done but I can see that you are dedicated and the people working for you are professionals but you are understaffed, and by doing this, the government is not only helping you, but helping the global health security,” Ormel said.

He stressed the need to create a five-year risk-based national action plan for health security with realistic cost proposals for priorities, based on the recommendation of the JEE report, and after-action reviews, using the guidance from the World Health Organisation.

Also speaking, the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, said Nigeria has achieved the pass mark but stressed that there is a need to focus on the identified gaps for improvement.

“This JEE has come at the right time. We now have new ministers that are going to be in office office soon, and this is the time to use the recommendations for short and long-term plans. We also know that the government led by President Bola Tinubu has a health agenda that covers broadly a lot of overlapping areas that were identified as gaps like universal health care, strengthening primary health care, digital health coverage, and health security,” Adetifa said.