The Federal Government has urged the Senate to fast-track the passage of the Bill to establish Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to enhance disease control in the country.
Minister of Health, Dr Isaac Adewole, made the call at a Public Hearing organised by Senate Committee on Primary Health Care and Communicable Diseases in Abuja on Monday.
He said that it was important to fast-track the process for enacting approved legal framework that would give teeth to the NCDC, adding that the centre’s value derived not only from 2014 achievement.
Adewole noted that the centre, in the last few months, had activated the national laboratory which had enabled the ministry to provide appropriate diagnosis for many Nigerians.
Stating that the bill had gone through first and second reading at the National Assembly, he said that Nigeria’s public health challenges had grown rapidly.
“Apart from the challenges of the North-East, there can be no other challenge to our corporate existence and public health outbreaks that we have witnessed,” he said.
Adewole, however, proposed a five-year single tenure for the chief executive of the centre to enable the management to focus on the assignments given to it.
In his submission, Prof. Abdulsalami Nasidi, Acting Executive Director, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), suggested that the Bill should emphasise more of prevention than control.
“We should also emphasise having alternative sources of funding of the organization.
“It is very crucial for us to establish a special intervention fund that will empower the agency to respond and reduce our health emergency time as we showcased during the Ebola outbreak.
“We want an NCDC that will be independent, autonomous to some extent,” he said.
Earlier, Chairman of the committee, Sen. Mao Ohuabunwa, noted that the goal of the centre included provision of control, prevention, coordination and facilitation of detection disease so as to achieve effective management of diseases.
He said that the NCDC Bill would help to provide sound health security to Nigerians, especially against some opportunistic communicable disease outbreaks.
“I am aware that some of the major issues that have the most impact on the provision of effective health care delivery for Nigerians include paucity of funds and lack of political will by governments.
“Such matters are better addressed within existing constitutional Acts that clearly spell out obligations and expectations of agencies involved in the implementation process, vis-à-vis that of the citizens.”(NAN)
