By Asma’u Ahmad
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has called for improved information sharing and data management in the country.
Ihekweazu made the call on the sideline of a conference with the Centre on Global Health Security, Chatham House, on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said that the aim of the conference was to develop guidelines on how to create the right environment and achieve good practice for sharing public health surveillance data and benefits.
Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu
The chief executive officer underscored the need for national public health institutions across the African continent to collaborate on sharing important information.
He added that sharing information would make citizens to take public action, especially in situations of disease outbreaks, seriously.
“We need a governance framework to practise this new development, based on mutual trust and understanding from one country to another. We are bringing top experts across the region on how to respond from a regional perspective,” he said.
A senior fellow at Chatham, Prof. Davis Harper, emphasised the need for stakeholders in the health sector to ensure there was global peace and security in the different regions.
“We have been working for some time looking at how global health security is linked with the spread of infectious disease and collective health security,” he said.
According to Professor Harper, the centre aims to bring about a standard operation procedure that is meant to tackle sensitive issues at the global capacity.
He further stated that there would be high level of information on how stakeholders can move the health sector forward without breaching trust.
