The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has donated essential laboratory equipment, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and commodities to support NCDC in outbreak responses.
The Programme Director, Division of Global Health Protection (CDC), Farah Husain, made this known, weekend, while handling over the equipments to the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Dr Olajide Idris, at the National Reference Laboratory, Gaduwa, Abuja.
She said it was part of the ongoing support of NCDC’s emergency responses to outbreaks.
Husain stated that the donation highlights the strong collaboration between CDC and NCDC.
“It is their shared commitment to protecting the health of the Nigerian people.
“We will continue to provide support and to be sustainable as well and the demand is much greater than the capacity,” she said.
In his earlier remarks, director general of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Dr Olajide Idris, said the federal government has placed health higher than where it is before and that health is at the forefront.
Dr. Idris stated that the equipment donated will boost their abilities because in the laboratory, the samples that are taken will determines which organisms is at stake and that is what gives us what to do and how to response to such diseases.
He noted that government is funding the health sector, but may not necessarilly be adequate as health system is a very expensive sector.
“No government can fund it on his own and that is why it requires collaboration from different partners.
“Most importantly, global health security is one of the major focus that needs collaboration, partnership both internationally, nationally and sub national because everybody is coming in with different expertise. You may have all the experts you need but with this kind of collaboration, it will boost each other’s capability and the goal is to achieve objective and reduce the incidents of diseases,” he stated.
Dr Idris further states that it will help reduce the death rate of any diseases and we partner with people in the sub national level, state and local government to fight most of this diseases.
