Leadership (Abuja)
Blessing Uduehi
14 November 2009
Abuja — As the year 2010 approaches (the target date for achieving the health-related millennium development goals), economic downturn is a threat to the improvements made in health systems and health outcomes.
Disclosing this yesterday in Abuja at the launch of the Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme (NFELTP), organised by the Federal Ministry of Health and the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US ambassador to Nigeria, Ambassador Robin Renee Sanders, said with the implementation of this programme, Nigeria was taking action to strengthen its health care systems to face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond by strengthening early warning as well as surveillance systems to detect outbreaks and avert illnesses and deaths.
She said the world was facing unprecedented health - related challenges, and the health systems that address those challenges are struggling with limited resources and capacity. Highlighting the problems militating against the nation's health system and people's health in Nigeria, the ambassador charged leaders in public health to maximise the value of scarce resources and find ways to make health systems operate as effectively as possible.
She disclosed that the US government, through the CDC, had made the Nigeria government in the past three years to create this programme and will continue to support the programme by investing in its people to build strong, effective and sustainable health systems, build capacity, as well as assist the country's efforts to improve public health and the country's health systems.
During the programme, the minister of state for Health, Dr. Aliyu Idi Hong, reiterated the ministry's commitment to improve public health emergencies at all levels of government in the country.
He noted that as Nigeria is the first country to implement the veterinary track, many countries would wish to adopt it.
According to him, NFELTP is a success story, assuring that the ministry would put in place the necessary machinery for the sustainability of the programme in Nigeria.
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