The Director-General of the NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu has advised states to invest more on health infrastructure in order to be well prepared for outbreaks of multiple and concurrent diseases.
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Ihekweazu gave the advice during the Nigerian Conference of Applied and Field Epidemiology (NiCAFE) conference in Abuja.
He stated that the advice became necessary because Nigeria faces concurrent and multiple disease outbreaks, even in the face of a threatening COVID-19 pandemic.
He noted that with increasing COVID-19 infections and deaths, the country is yet to see the worst of the pandemic.
He said: “In the last one month alone, we have been responding to increasing number of COVID-19 cases, an outbreak of cholera in several states, panic associated with the detection of a monkeypox case in the U.S. with travel history from Nigeria.
“Every week, we detect cases of yellow fever, Lassa fever, measles and other infectious diseases that are endemic in Nigeria. That is our reality – our tropical climate, population density, and poor socioeconomic factors leave us at risk of annual, multiple, concurrent disease outbreaks in Nigeria. Therefore, we must be one step ahead of these pathogens,” he stated.
Dr Ihekweazu said Nigeria must begin to pay premium priority and attention to public health challenges, even as the population growth increases, thereby burdening the health system infrastructure.
This year’s Nigeria Conference of Applied and Field Epidemiology, NiCAFE, officially opened with a pledge by the government to be more prepared for disease outbreaks in the country.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire said: “Despite the pandemic, we have not stopped recording other infectious disease outbreaks.
In the last month, we have been responding to an outbreak of cholera across states, an increasing number of Lassa fever cases, a recent monkeypox case reported in the U.S. with travel history from Nigeria, as well as weekly reports of yellow fever and measles cases.”
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