Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, NCDC, has launched its strategic roadmap for 2024 to 2026, which is poised to strengthen Nigeria’s public health infrastructure and enhance the country’s ability to respond effectively to current and future health threats.
During a media briefing in Abuja, the Director-general of NCDC, Dr. Jide Idris Idris acknowledged the challenges anticipated during implementation of the roadmap, such as limited resources, infrastructure constraints and outlined strategies to address them.
Dr. Idris therefore advocated increased investments in public health initiatives and strengthened partnerships as well as collaboration with diverse stakeholders to implement innovative strategies for disease prevention and control.
“If we don’t bring in the Agriculture and Environment sector, it will not be effective. This is because diseases like Ebola, Monkeypox, Lassa fever, Yellow fever, including the Covid-19 are all zoonotic which affects humans. It is incumbent on NCDC to forge partnerships, we are in communication with the forum of health commissioners, and the Nigerian Governors Forum. There’s need to know the social determinants in different zones.“
The NCDC boss also called on the federal government to collaborate with states government to ensure that the citizens were protected because the crux of disease control was at the states and local government levels.
“It is better to prevent these diseases from happening rather than waiting for them to occur. We have seasonal calendar, we know our disease patterns and when they occur year in and year out, people still die. We want to prevent people from dying….he said.“
Dr. Idris also emphasised the importance of monitoring and evaluating progress through a robust framework and best standard practices to ensure the sustainability of all efforts.
RN