By Asmau Ahmad
The United States Centre for Disease Control (US-CDC) said it had partnered with Nigeria for decades to provide anti-retroviral treatment to 1.7 million people living with HIV.
The US-CDC Nigeria Country Director, Dr Mary Boyd, disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja on the sideline of a World Press Conference to herald the upcoming Primary Health Care (PHC) Summit.
The Primary Health Care Summit is slated to take place on March 24th and March 25th, 2022, in Abuja.
Boyd said the US-CDC has also helped in scaling up immunisations, including COVID-19, malaria and other disease outbreaks.
“For decades, the United States has partnered with Nigeria to invest in the health and well-being of Nigerians.
“The U.S.-CDC stands with the Nigerian government and expects that the upcoming PHC summit will be instrumental in enabling the highest quality of care for all by ensuring service integration, equity, accountability and resilience.
“Primary Health Care saves lives, saves economies, and is foundational to making health systems work better for all people.”
Boyd noted that globally, including in the U.S., COVID-19 exacerbated not only pre-existing weaknesses in the system but also inflicted devastating health and economic costs that many countries are still struggling to emerge from.
She, however, said that it had created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for transformational change.
“It has highlighted the critical role of PHCs in pandemic response from testing to contact tracing to vaccination response; all these in addition to its primary responsibilities of providing routine immunisation, polio response, the epidemic of chronic diseases and cancers,” she explained.
Boyd lauded the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and the multi-sectoral response for their concerted response in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I also want to thank the FMOH and NPHCDA for calling all partners together and taking advantage of this opportunity to re-think the PHC delivery in Nigeria,” the country director added.
