Health
World Bank Specialist Identifies public Finance as UHC Enabler
Dr Olumide Okunola, Senior Health Specialist at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, has said that Universal Health Coverage (UHC) was not achievable in any country without public finance.
Okunola stated this on Day Two of the Fourth Annual Legislative Summit on Health themed: ”Universal Health Coverage and Health Security: Two sides of a coin for an efficient health system”, on Monday, in Abuja.
The summit, holding from May 23 to 25, 2021, was convened by the National Assembly with support from partners.
Okunola noted that the National Assembly was responsible for the appropriation of public finance, and without the legislatures UHC cannot be achieved in the country.
He called on Nigeria to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic and prioritize the issues around public health financing and institutional structures.
“I saw a draft Bill for Bayelsa State Center for Disease Control is very commendable.
“We must set up institutional structures to combat pandemics. COVID-19 will not be the last, we need to prevent future epidemic in Nigeria,” he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Nigeria, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombos, also noted that COVID-19 had revealed the fractures in the health system and had provided an opportunity for countries to take charge and build functional health infrastructure systems.
Dr. Njide Ndili, Country Director, PharmAccess Nigeria, added that without government commitment to funding, achieving UHC by 2030 would be impossible.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ibrahim Oloriegbe, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, has stated that the purpose of the summit was to review the state of Nigeria’s health system in the light of emerging pandemics like the COVID-19, and to strengthen the nation’s health security.
Oloriegbe, who noted that UHC and Health Security were interrelated, said: “We have to ensure that all health needs of people are met with sufficient quality without leading to financial hardship”.
NAN recalls that the overall objective of setting up the Legislative Network on Health was to effectively leverage statutory functions of the Legislature in Nigeria for improved health financing, through effective and efficient utilization of the resources for UHC.
The Summit has been identified as one of the tools used by the legislators to collectively strategise on how to achieve these objectives. Every year, since the first Summit was convened in July 2017 (except 2020 because of COVID-19), Legislators had gathered with this singular purpose in mind.
It seeks to discuss, analyse health situations in the country, make decisions and take a stand on the way forward to solve whatever challenges each State may face, within their respective contexts.
What ensures success and nationwide reach is the fact that the discussions include all states of the federation, and the summit clearly identifies the role every stakeholder needs to play and leverages these to achieve identified objectives.
A major output of these meetings is a strategic framework called the Legislative Health Agenda, an actionable work-plan developed by each State to address existing challenges in respective health sectors by applying their statutory functions of Legislatures, that include Appropriation, Oversight and Representation. (NAN)
Hundreds of millions of children and adolescents around the world face daily violence in their homes, schools, and elsewhere which could have lifelong consequences.The World Health Organisation (WHO) said this on Thursday.The violence includes being hit by family members, being bullied at school, as well as physical, emotional, and sexual violence, WHO said.
In most cases, violence occurs behind closed doors. More than half of those aged two to 17 or more than a billion minors in total experience violence each year according to the WHO. In three out of five children and adolescents, it is physical violence at home, with one in five girls and one in seven boys experiencing sexual violence.Between a quarter and half of minors are affected by bullying according to the information provided.Only half of the children reportedly talk about their experiences of violence and less than 10 per cent receive help.Lifelong consequences could include depression and anxiety disorders, or tobacco and drug use.As a result, many children do not reach their learning potential in school.Against the backdrop of being highly preventable, violence remains a horrific day-to-day reality for millions of children around the world leaving scars that span generations,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general.The UN’s first conference on violence against children opened in Bogota, Columbia on Thursday.At the two-day conference, more than 100 countries pledged to find ways to better support overwhelmed parents and introduce school programmes against bullying and for healthy social behaviour.They also pledged to raise the minimum age for marriage.Some countries wish to generally ban children from being hit at school or home. (dpa/NAN)
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has listed 17 bacteria, viruses and parasites that regularly cause disease as top priorities for new vaccine development.WHO, in a study published on Tuesday, reconfirmed long-standing priorities for vaccine research and development (R&D), including for HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis – three diseases that collectively take nearly 2.
5 million lives yearly. The study is the first global effort to systematically prioritise endemic pathogens based on their regional and global health impact. Attention is also given to pathogens such as Group A streptococcus, which causes severe infections and contributes to 280,000 deaths from rheumatic heart disease, mainly in lower-income countries.Another new priority is Klebsiella pneumoniae — a bacteria that was associated with 790,000 deaths in 2019 and is responsible for 40 per cent of neonatal deaths due to blood infection (sepsis) in low-income countries.The new study supports the goal of ensuring that everyone, everywhere, can benefit from vaccines that protect against serious diseases.It aims to shift the focus in vaccine development away from commercial returns towards regional and global health needs, WHO’s Dr Mateusz Hasso-Agopsowicz, who works in vaccine research, said in a statement.He explained that in the past, vaccine R&D typically was influenced by profitability.“As a result, diseases that severely affect low-income regions received little attention.“We hope this represents a critical shift where we want to change the focus from commercial perspective profitability of new vaccines towards the actual health burden so that the new vaccine research and development is driven by health burden and not just commercial opportunities,” he said.To carry out the study, WHO asked international and regional experts what they think is important when prioritising pathogens for vaccines R&D.Criteria included deaths, disease and socioeconomic impact, or antimicrobial resistance.“We had asked experts that have expertise in pathogen epidemiology, clinicians, paediatricians, vaccine experts from all of the WHO regions, to ensure that the list and the results that we produce really reflect the needs of diverse populations worldwide,” Hasso-Agopsowicz said.Analysis of those preferences, combined with regional data for each pathogen, resulted in the top 10 priority pathogens for each of WHO’s six regions globally.The regional lists were then consolidated to form the global list, resulting in the 17 priority endemic pathogens for which new vaccines are urgently needed.To advance vaccine R&D, WHO has categorised each pathogen based on the stage of vaccine development and the technical challenges involved in creating effective vaccines.Hasso-Agopsowicz said the study is expected to guide future vaccine R&D investments, including funders, researchers and vaccine developers, and also policymakers as they “can decide whether to introduce these vaccines into immunisation programmes.” (NAN)
The Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan,has suspended the strike it embarked on Oct. 25.The workers resumed work on Friday morning.The seven-day nationwide warning industrial action embarked upon by the unions was to press home their demands ofadjustment of Consolidated Health Salary Structure as was done with the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure sinceJan.
2, 2014 and implementation of consultant cadre for pharmacists in federal health institutions. Others are upward review in the retirement age from 60 to 65 years for health workers and 70 years for consultants, andpayment of outstanding salaries of JOHESU members in professional regulatory councils.The UCH JOHESU Chairman, Mr Oladayo Olabampe, said that the strike was suspended as directed by the national body.He explained that “the suspension followed an MoU signed between JOHESU national leadership and Federal Government.“The Federal Government asked for a maximum of six weeks counting from Oct. 31, to meet our demands.“Based on the MoU signed, the JOHESU National Executive Council met and resolved that the strike be suspended on Fridaynationwide.”According to him, JOHESU UCH is obeying the order, and workers have resumed work.Olabampe said that if the demands were not met after the six weeks, they would embark on an indefinite strike. (NAN)
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