Chioma Umeha
The United Kingdom through its national public
health institute, Public Health England(PHE) and the Nigeria Centre for Disease
Control(NCDC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Tuesday, to
strengthen health security in Nigeria.
The IHR strengthening programme in Nigeria is part
of a £16 million project funded by the UK Department of Health, to support the
capacities of national public health institutes in five countries. In Nigeria,
this project will focus on the key pillars within the mandate of NCDC,
including disease surveillance, emergency preparedness and response, public
health laboratory services as well as workforce development.
At the signing event in Abuja, the IHR
strengthening programme was formally launched by the British High Commissioner
to Nigeria, Ambassador Paul Arkwright. In his remarks, Ambassador Arkwright
emphasised the need for strong collaboration between national public health institutes
in ensuring global health security.
“The United Kingdom recognizes that we must work
closely with other countries in our efforts to build strong and resilient
health systems globally. The partnership between PHE and NCDC would contribute
to ensuring the world is much safer and less vulnerable from the threat of
infectious diseases”.
Duncan Selbie, Chief Executive of PHE, added that
the recent cases of monkey pox in the United Kingdom highlighted the ease of
movement of infectious diseases and reinforced the need to strengthen national
public health institutes globally.
“The IHR strengthening project is very much a
partnership and invaluable opportunity for both countries to learn from each
other. By working together and sharing expertise, both countries become
stronger and that is our joint ultimate aim.”
In his address, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, NCDC CEO,
stated that the implementation of the IHR strengthening programme in Nigeria
will be coordinated by NCDC. The NCDC will work with PHE to provide dedicated
staff time and adoption of a multi-sectoral collaboration with the Federal
Ministry of Health, Federal Ministry of Environment, and Federal Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development; other relevant ministries, departments and
agencies (MDAs); as well as partner organisations.
“We are grateful for this opportunity which
formalises and strengthens the existing relationship between NCDC and PHE. We
look forward to building on this co-operation, for national and global health
security” said Dr. Ihekweazu.
Since the program began in 2017, PHE has supported
NCDC in the development of its National Action Plan for Health Security
(NAPHS), training of staff.
from the National Reference Laboratory and the
network of public health laboratories on enteric pathogen testing, development
and strengthening of protocols for NCDC’s incident management system and
several other project areas.
