Coordinating
Minister, Federal Ministry of Health and
Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali
Pate has received and commissioned on
behalf of the Federal Government, 72 Toyota Hilux operational vehicles and valuable
equipment to support the HIV and Tuberculosis (TB) National Responses and the building
of a resilient and sustainable system of healthcare in Nigeria.
The
Coordinating Minister, represented by
the Minister of State, Dr. Tunji Alausa commissioned
the equipment at the handover ceremony organised by Global Fund with the theme “
Making the Global Investments work for Nigeria” recently in Lagos.
According
to Professor Pate, the HIV/TB equipment was purchased with funding support by the Global Fund as part of Grant
Cycle 6 Investments in the 2021-2023 implementation period while the current
donations of 72 Toyota Hilux operational vehicles which would be distributed across
36 states of the country to support state governments’ oversight of integrated
HIV /TB programmes in the respective states.
“This
is also a fitting step towards the devolution and decentralisation of
responsibilities as well as shifting the ownership, coordination and management
of the national response from the central government to the states and local
government consistent with the 2.0 agreements” he stated.
The
Minister stressed that while Nigeria remains one of the highest recipients of the
Global Funds Investment and has signed about US $4.8billion grants from the
Global Fund including the grant cycle that was signed recently to support the
HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria response as well as building resilient and sustainable
system for health since 2002, the Global Fund has been and remains a strategic partner
to the Federal Government for over two decades.
Pate
asserted that Nigeria as a contributor and a recipient of the Global Fund
Financial Support has contributed a total of US$ 13.2 million for the Global
Funds Seventh Replenishment covering 2023 – 2025 allocation period. This
represents a 10 percent increase over its sixth replenishment pledge which is a
demonstration of political will.
He
explained that in the past three years, Global Fund has made tremendous donations
of various diagnostic equipment distributed nationwide to effectively close the
diagnostic gap in the management of TB and on the account of these investments, Nigeria diagnosed over 300,000 TB cases in 2023, marking the first time in
its history that such a number of TB diagnosis is recorded. With this, Nigeria
has now increased TB finding from 24 percent to 68 percent and also improve HIV
treatment coverage in Nigeria between 2020 and 2023.
Conveying
the appreciation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the Global Fund for the
donation and support to the country's response towards ending the epidermis of HIV, TB and
Malaria by year 2030 and elimination of
mother – child HIV transmission through the new thrust for Prevention of Mother
to Child Transmission (PMTCT)
optimization and scale up, he commended the efforts of various partners for the
excellent job of coordinating government’s response with support from the
Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) and Non Governmental Organisations who are
principal recipients of the grant particularly FHI 360, Institute of Human
Virology, Nigeria.
Speaking
on behalf of the partners, Mark Edington, Head of Grant Management, Global Fund, said that “the goal here is to ensure
that the state programme managers are equipped to coordinate the deployment of point
of care diagnostic equipment for HIV and TB case findings to be agile to adjust
to emerging local epidemiological trends to facilitate achievement of the
pragmatic goals and to maximize Global Fund Investments in the states. I hope
that the investments will be effectively utilised to address challenges for the
HIV and TB programmes”.
Appreciating
the efforts of the Global Funds, Federal Government and partners for their unwavering commitment
to the course of healthcare, Dr. Akinwumi Fajola, 2nd Vice Chair, CCM,
the Global Fund Nigeria, stated that the partnership and integrated delivery is
about working together in collaboration with all stakeholders and partners to
deliver value to the people.
Deworitshe
Patricia
D
(Information)
20/3/2024