The Federal Government has reiterated its commitment on implementing health education and prevention strategies.
The main objective is to eradicate the heavy burden of non-communicable diseases, high mortality rate and mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Minister of State for Health & Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako made this known on Thursday when he received a delegation of Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) led by its Executive Vice President, Dr. David Ripin.
Speaking on the burden of diseases such as cancers, hypertension and diabetes in the society, Salako stated that the government is adopting a more proactive approach of health education and prevention to completely address the challenges.
He assured that the budget of the ministry for year 2025 will feature programmes on cancer prevention at all levels.
“This year in our budget, we are focusing a lot attention on cancer. And a lot of that funding will be around cancer prevention, both at primary prevention and secondary prevention levels, with screening, population prevention, and so on and so forth”; the minister stated.
Salako highlighted the priority attention of the Government to address and, reduce high mortality rates to the lowest, stressing, a programme known as Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative has been launched by the Ministry.
The minister pointed out that the ministry will address challenges around providing maternal care, particularly in high-burden local governments for maternal mortalities.
He stated further that introducing minimal technology into maternal care plus ultrasound would drive more women to come for antenatal care.
Salako appreciated the existing partnership between the ministry and CHAI, adding that it would bring more positive impact and results to the average Nigerian.
During her briefing, Dr. Olufunke Fasawe Country Director of CHAI, enumerated contributions of the organization towards improving access to healthcare delivery in the country.
According to her, these include collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Health & Social Welfare on a 50% reduction in the prices of some chemotherapies and, supporting about 20 plus centres across the country, whilst ensuring that patients have access to these prices of chemotherapy.
Fasawe pointed out that CHAI has moved cervical screening from outreaches, NGOs and, charitable events; to actually integrating it into the normal routine services such that any woman 25 years and above can routinely get screened for cervical cancer.
She explained that over 57,000 women have received HPV screening, and CHAI was able to get a significant price reduction of HPV testkits from about $20 to now $7 to achieve the high number of screened women.
