The Nigeria Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (NCDC) has called for dedicated funding to implement health security capacities.
NCDC Director General, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, made the call yesterday in Abuja during the flag off of the second Joint External Evaluation (JEE) of Nigeria’s International Health Regulations (IHR) capacities.
Nigeria had conducted the first JEE in 2017 and scored a total of 41%.
Health security involves activities and measures across sovereign boundaries that mitigate public health incidents to ensure the health of populations.
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Adetifa said progress had been made in health security over the years but that it must be sustained across all sectors with investments and strategies to increase state level capacities.
Senior Advisor of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global JEE secretariat, Dr Henk Jan Ormel, said JEE was developed to help countries assess their capacity to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats.
He said the process involves a diverse team of experts, collectively evaluating a nation’s preparedness and response capacities across 19 technical areas, under the guidance of relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
