On January 24, 2020, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control had its management debriefing with its technical working committee to review its responses to the increasing threats of outbreaks of infectious diseases and other public health emergencies.
The centre’s management meeting with its technical working committee highlighted the need to train its LGAs representatives on the use of the Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System – SORMAS. Overstretched health workers and limited treatment centres were also some of the centre’s challenges. With 36 states and a Federal Capital Territory, there are only 21 treatment centres across 17 states of the Federation. This is alarmingly ridiculous for a centre established to stockpile and preposition for outbreak response across the country.
Weak reporting lines between laboratories and physicians and poor data management between public health practitioners and the Incident Coordination Centre tasked with daily intelligence gathering are other serious challenges the centre is facing. These challenges are without the centre’s poor interaction with the media in its operations and development.
Nigeria’s public health challenges continue to grow—rapid population growth, increasing movement of people and destruction of infrastructure in North-East of Nigeria following the ‘Boko Haram’ insurgency and outbreaks from new and re-emerging pathogens. The year 2017 saw an increase in the rate of infectious diseases like Lassa Fever, 11 Yellow Fever, Monkey Pox, Cholera and new strains/subtypes/serotypes of existing pathogens like Neisseria meningitis serogroup C in Nigeria.
We need to do something about this rats! Rats playing Late Arrival Superior Aggression on us, They are taking over my compound gradually. Some don’t even fear no more looking at me in the eyes like what am I gon do. They want to wipe us out!