The United States Centre for Disease Control has donated disease detective equipment to Nigeria.
The Equioment were received on Friday in Abuja on behalf of the Federal Government by the Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr.Jide Idris.
The laboratory supplies are expected to beef up the country’s outbreak response capacity, and include biosafety cabinets, sample collection materials, and other essential laboratory commodities.
Programme Director, U.S. CDC Division of Global Health Protection, Dr. Farah Husain, said the donation was part of the efforts in helping Nigeria address the challenge of disease outbreaks.
She said that the equipment would help sustain the quality and high outputs of Nigeria’s labs.
Husain also assured Nigeria of her country’s commitment to help develop response capacity in protecting the people against disease outbreaks.
She said: “The United States is committed to working hand-in-hand with Nigeria to build response capacity and protect the health of our peoples,” adding “Today, we gather to celebrate a concrete example of the strong partnership between the United States and Nigeria.
“The U.S. Government, via the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is proud to donate equipment and supplies to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention to support emergency response laboratory activities.
“Nigeria is currently facing several ongoing disease outbreaks, including Lassa fever, diphtheria, and meningitis.
“Laboratory scientists play a vital role in quickly detecting and confirming cases, which is crucial for an an effective outbreak response.
”The increased volume of laboratory work created by these simultaneous outbreaks creates a pressing need for additional resources.
“Together, with laboratories as the cornerstone of our collaborative work, we can quickly and effectively prevent and respond to outbreaks.”
Husain revealed that health workers were not left out as there were personal protective equipment for safety of laboratory workers, stating “Additionally, we have included large amounts of personal protective equipment to safeguard the health and safety of laboratory workers. Whether in the subnational labs, health facilities, or the communities they serve, this donation will directly help save lives.”
In his remarks, the NCDC boss assured the US government that the equioment would be judiciously put to use.
Idris noted that the gesture was going to boost the country’s disease detection and capability ability.
While hailing the importance of the collaboration with the US government, Idris stressed that no government could fund health system because it was very expensive.
He explained: “No government can fund health system and that’s where we require this kind of collaboration from different partners.
“The idea and the goal is to reduce the incidence.
“What concerns us mostly here is health security. This is key because a nation’s mandate to the people is to ensure that the health of the people is sacrosanct in terms of preventing the people from catching any disease, and if so, where that progression, activity is not adequate, but ensure that you properly detect whatever disease that is occurred and at the same time respond to it.
“Like we said, the government is funding the sector, but the funding may not necessarily be adequate now. That is why the health system is very expensive. No government can fund it on its own. That is why it requires this kind of collaboration from different partners.
“More importantly, in terms of global health security, one of the major focus is collaboration, partnerships both internationally, nationally and sub-nationally because everybody is coming in with different expertise and we will not necessarily have all the expertise we need but with this kind of collaboration in boosting productivity.
“The goal is to achieve our objective to reduce incidents of disease. And where you cannot stop that we respond adequately so that we can bring down the effect of any disease that is the essence here.
“So collaboration. Partnerships are key essentials of health security.”
