The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has received about N3.1 billion from the office of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to resume provision of free care for pregnant women and children under five in some pilot states.

The implementation of the programme, funded by the MDG office, which targets universal insurance is being restarted by the NHIS, after it was earlier suspended by the federal government on account of funding concerns.

The acting executive secretary of the NHIS, Dr Abdulraham Sambo who made this known when he paid a courtesy visit to Daily Trust yesterday said states who are willing to pay their counterpart funds would be included in the programme.

The five states that have so far shown commitment are Borno, Yobe, Niger, Oyo and Edo.

Sambo while soliciting for collaboration from Daily Trust to assist the scheme in achieving its mandate of universal coverage for health noted that it would be impossible to achieve this mandate if all stakeholders do not buy into the programme.

Nationwide, just about nine million Nigerians have any form of health cover, including around 2.7 million federal government employees and another one million in the organised private sector.