27th February, 2020
President of the Senate Ahmed Lawan has appealed to the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to lend their support to the Nigerian government towards ensuring eradication of tuberculosis in the country.
According to a statement signed by Special Assistant (Press) to the Senate President on Wednesday, Lawan made the appeal when a delegation of the United Nations Programming Mission paid a visit to his office at the National Assembly, Abuja.
“This is the time for us to prioritize our enlightenment, education and even investment in non-communicable disease as well.
“We are very grateful for your support for our country for a long time. The National Assembly has been very supportive of increasing investments in the Health sector.
“Recall that in the Eighth National Assembly, we passed a legislation to devote about one percent of our annual budget to Universal Health coverage, and that translated into about fifty-five to sixty billion naira annually, and this is in clear view that the health sector in Nigeria receives more resources for investment, but that is not enough.”
“Nigeria is a big country, and the kind of figure we have – two hundred million people – requires that we have more investment in the health sector than we have been able to do.
“If we are number one in the African sub-region and ranked ten in the world, it is not an enviable statistic.
“It is not a good commentary that we are in that kind of leading position from behind. So, we have to do a lot of work, and I want to take this opportunity to request and plead that you help us attend to these issues while we continue to keep the health sector and try to see how much more of investment we can make as a country.
“We will rely on you to support us technically and with additional resources that will help us reverse the statistics that we have today”, the Senate President appealed.