Nigeria has been commended for her huge investment in health security especially during the fight against Covid-19.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), through its Emergency Preparedness and Response Cluster Lead in Nigeria, Dr Rex Mpazanje, gave the commendation on Monday, December 6, 2021, at a three-day Technical Meeting of the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on COVID-19 summit, in Abuja.
Speaking on the topic, “Leveraging on the National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) for COVID-19 response”, the WHO lead said that Nigeria did well in terms of investment in health security, but called for more domestic investment from the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), and at the state levels.
According to him, with the last review on funds that were supposed to be made available, the investments in National Action Plan on Health Security (NAPHS) have been quite commendable.
“It was clear that in the advent of COVID, Nigeria was able to realize most of the money. What was needed was about N439 million and based on the review, almost 80 percent of that money was realized, largely based on the COVID funding, he noted.
Mpazanje, however, called on the Federal Government to evolve strategies to sustain the capacities that have been built in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic at both the national and state levels.
In his address of welcome, Dr. Muhammad Muktar, Technical Lead, Presidential Steering Committee, on COVID-19, said that the government assisted states in the fight against the pandemic.
He expressed optimism that the summit would review what had been done in the country in the fight against the pandemic and ways of building the bridge on what has been lost.
While also acknowledging that the pandemic would not end soon, Muktar said that efforts would be galvanized to prevent the harsh impact of the pandemic in the future.
