The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), has appealed to state and local governments to invest more on polio endgame programme towards achieving polio free certification from World Health Organisation by March 2020.

 

Dr Oladimeji Olayinka, Director, Primary Health Care Systems Development, NPHCDA disclosed this to News Agency of Nigeria(NAN), on the sideline of the 62nd National Council of Health meeting on Friday in Asaba. Olayinka said that the agency maintained a high momentum of vigilance to ensure that Nigeria achieved the certification by March, 2020. He said that three years without wild polio virus was a milestone.

 

Olayinka added that the NPHCDA prayers at the 62nd National Council of Health meeting was for the council to push for a sustain state and Local Government Council’s, funding for polio eradication and routine immunization. He urged the participants at the meeting to Intensify and sustain a social and community mobilization for polio eradication and routine immunization.

Olayinka said the establishment of the National and State Emergency Operation Centres was one of the best practices that led to the success stories observed in the polio eradication programme in Nigeria. He disclosed that the agency’s vision was to build a robust agency that would deliver tangible results to improve PHCs in Nigeria.

 

Speaking on the Nigeria State Investment Project, Olayinka said the project was operational in eight states of the federation. He added that the states and the FCT were at varying degrees of setting up the necessary structures that were required for the full implementation of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund.

 

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National Council on Health (NCH), a prescription of the National Health Act (2014), is made up of the Council and the Technical Committee supported by the Secretariat (domiciled in the Department of Health Planning, Research and Statistics).

 

The council is made up of the minister, who is the Chairman, Minister of State for Health, Commissioners responsible for matters relating to Health in the states of the federation and the Secretary responsible for Health in the FCT, Abuja.