From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
As government and the private sector continue efforts to contain the deadly COVID-19, PharmAccess Foundation, alongside Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and others have shared their experience so far in the fight against COVID-19.
Speaking during a recent town-hall meeting, the Country Director of PharmAccess Foundation, Mrs. Njide Ndili, made it known that the Foundation led in the integration of private sector in the response to the pandemic.
According to Ndili, the Foundation was involved in several activities in Lagos, which has been the epicenter of the pandemic in Nigeria.
The town-hall meeting which was organized by the UNDP also hosted the former National Coordinator, Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr. Sani Aliyu; Director General of NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu; Ogun State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Tomi Coker, and other health stakeholders.
Ndili said: “PharmAccess Foundation which was predominantly supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, provided technical assistance to the Federal and State governments of Nigeria to build capacity for a strong healthcare system.
“We were involved in several activities in Lagos because we were already rooted in the state which was the epicenter. The first thing we did was that we became part of the Lagos State Government’s COVID-19 strategy think-tank to help develop the strategy to combat pandemic.
“With that, we realized the need for involvement of the private sector. We did the landscaping to identify private laboratories that could quickly scale up testing.
“Lagos state government contracted seven private laboratories, An innovative application called LUSCII, was also developed to help in monitoring COVID-19 symptoms, and also connect people to a contracted facility, which would provide free testing and free treatment.
She added: “we collaborated with Novartis to supply Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to over 23 public healthcare facilities across the six geopolitical zones.
“We were also able to use that opportunity to promote and upscale the uptake of health insurance and also supported both Lagos and Kwara States to launch their mandatory health insurance scheme.”
In his remarks, the DG NCDC, Dr. Ihekweazu, said: “We never had the public health infrastructure to manage a pandemic of such magnitude or to even mitigate its impact.
“However, we did the best with what we had. We had people in our work force who had responded to Lassa fever, Meningitis outbreaks, etc, and we deployed them for the response. They started what has been one and a half years of consistent response to the biggest threat to health in our lifetime.
“We hope there won’t be another wave of this pandemic, and we are doing everything possible to avoid it. However, Nigerians must abide by non-pharmaceutical measures to contain the disease.”
The NCDC boss warned that a third wave may be inevitable, insisting that “it’s up to Nigerians to mitigate the impact and ensure that there is not third wave.
“The Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) made a very difficult decision recently, to limit travels from a few countries that were having spikes in infections so as not to bring a new variant of the virus into the country. We are also trying to encourage everyone to take the vaccines.”
One of the panelists, the Resident Representative, UNDP, Mr. Mohammed Yahya, highlighted UNDP’s assistance to Nigeria during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
Yahya said that UNDP provided technical assistance for the government’s response team after they observed that Nigeria’s health system was very limited in terms of investment, and the social structures were heavily reliant on informality.
Yahya said: “The first thing we did was to support the NCDC and provide the technical needs that were available to us through our specialized agency, among several other interventions.”