The Minister of Health, Prof.Isaac Adewole has called on State Ministries of Health across the Federation to maintain high surveillance and intensify vaccination coverage in their respective states.
The Minister made this call in Abuja Thursday at the Emergency National Council on Health meeting which was convened to deliberate and agree on the new National Health Policy, the recent resurgence of polio cases, persisting Lassa Fever outbreaks in some states as well as plans on achieving Universal Health Coverage.
It would be recalled that 2 children were paralysed by the wild polio virus earlier in August, both from Borno state of which genetic sequencing of the viruses suggested that the new cases were mostly linked to a wild polio virus strain last detected in Borno in 2011.
He said that the sad news of the new cases was a wake up call and reassuring since low-level transmission of the virus was not unexpected, particularly in areas where it was difficult to reach children with the vaccine.
To this end, he stressed the need for state governments, partners as well as countries sharing borders with Nigeria to step up their surveillance activities to ensure early detection and rapid response.
In his words: ‘’ we need you to work together to strengthen our surveillance systems to ensure that our response remains timely and effective’’.
He assured of government’s determination to work with state governments, development partners and neighbouring countries to maintain high level of surveillance and diligence in the control of polio without giving room for complacency until the disease is eradicated globally.
Speaking on government efforts to eradicate polio, he said: ‘’ we have already budgeted for polio eradication activities in the 2016 budget; we have since August, launched a massive vaccination campaign throughout the affected regions of Borno and neighbouring states with plans to have more of such rounds of vaccinations before the end of the year’’.
On the National Health Policy,Prof.Adewole explained that prior to the development of this National Health Policy document, Nigeria had hitherto developed and implemented two National Health Policies in 1988 and 2004 which were both developed at critical stages in the evolution of the Nigeria health system and had far reaching impact in improving the performance of the system over the course of their lifetime.
‘’As we all are aware, the development of a policy is never an end in itself, but rather a means to an end, the end being improvement in the health status of Nigerians which requires meticulous implementation of the policy by all stakeholders alike’’.
While expressing optimism that the new National Health Policy was now set out to put Nigeria on track towards the successful implementation of the National Health Act and the achievement of Universal Health Coverage as well as sustainable health development, he noted that over the last two and a half decades, Nigeria has recorded significant progress in the performance of its health system which culminated in the improvements in key indices for ‘major’ communicable diseases ( HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria), as well as maternal and child health.
Earlier, in her remarks, The Permanent Secretary, Mrs.Binta Amina Bello stressed the need to strengthen Secondary and Tertiary Care for a seamless and responsive referral system.
She said: ‘’We are working on strategies to provide states with some incentives to strengthen the secondary health facilities under their jurisdictions as well as strategies to improve access to world class tertiary health care services.’’
