The Director General Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu on Thursday said the Centre have started re-thinking it’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country to improve access to Vaccines and diagnostics.
The DG said the Centre will begin to engage globally to also improve Nigeria’s access to therapeutics, which are all critical in the fight against the virus. He added that the centre have also begun investigations and research into the cause of the outbreak in certain parts of the country.
The DG said Nigeria may not have access to Covid-19 vaccine when developed, hence the need for the centre to re-strategize and engage globally. He noted that the country do not still have access to the human Papilloma Virus which was developed ten years, due to the cost of $50 per shot.
“So slowly we are rethinking our response at the NCDC, from trying to subdue the impact of the outbreak to one that is increasingly science-led, evidence-led, we want to dig deeper to what is driving this outbreak in certain parts of the country and use that to inform the response.
“So we have to engage globally to insist on equitable access to the vaccines when they are developed, by making case to access to this vaccines. We must engage globally to have access to diagnostics, which is one of our biggest challenge.
“We must fight to have more access to therapeutics and everything we need to fight this disease, this is why we need to engage globally,” Ihekweazu said.
“This is a global outbreak, so we must engage globally, that global engagement starts form science and understanding the factors driving this outbreak in Nigeria and globally,” he added.
The DG further informed that as the centre engages globally, it will also look at countries like India, Brazil and Mexico that share similar demographic with Nigeria and face similar challenges.
“In, Mexico there is a large number of health care workers affected, In Chile, intensive care has almost collapsed because capacity is been exceeded, so these are the countries that we need to look at because of the similarities in demography, population density,” he said.
Ihekweazu also informed that the centre is also beginning to focus on the research and have brought together TETFund, NUC to map out research priorities in Nigeria and how we NCDC can improve response.
He added that the centre will also activte the influenza surveillance network to have a new surveillance system that will estimate the incidence of Covid-19 in patients with respiratory infections.
Ihekweazu said Nigeria will have to learn to live with this virus for some time to come and living with it means saving lives form other diseases in the country
“We must keep our primary health care working, Keep people on anti-retrovirals and we must not forget that our fragile national health insurance system needs to continue evolving. All these are extremely critical.
