By Ndidi Chukwu
The United Nations Population Fund has donated 1,000 personal protective equipment kits to help shore up Nigeria’s preparedness plan for Ebola. But it urged the Federal Ministry of Health to help find storage for the kits, insisting it was running out of space for them. The agency also handed over two laptops and 20 Ford four-wheel-drives bought through counterpart funding with both Subsidy Reinvestment Programme and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency. The vehicles will supports monitoring of programmes for reproductive, maternal and child health in six states.
UNFPA resident representative Ratidzai Ndhlovu said the vehicles will “boost the last mile distribution of essential medicines and drugs from state warehouse to primary health centres in the six states and the FCT.” The laptops donated to the Federal Ministry of Health will help strengthen information system to manage logistics data related to reproductive health, life-saving drugs and family planning commodities,” Ndhlovu said.
It comes after a previous donation last year of 186 desktop computers to seven states and the central contraceptive warehouse in Oshodi.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s co-chairing the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children is signal Nigeria is on course to develop clear strategies to implement the UN’s recommendations to save a million lives of women and children by 2016, said UNFPA.
Both the agency and Canadian government in 2013 donated $6.2million in maternal health medicines and equipment for distribution to facilities in Lagos, Kebbi, Cross Rivers, Kaduna, Sokoto, Adamawa, Ebonyi and FCT.
