Strengthening Nigeria’s Health Systems After COVID-19: The Impact of the Global Fund C19RM Project

[00:00:01][music] >> So, I want to thank um all our partners and I want to specially recognize our work.

[00:01:26]USG Rule data file and NPHCDA supported the Federal Ministry of Health and NCDC in a lot of what has been said today.

[00:01:37]And NCDC, we worked um closely with Jhpiego, I come and John Snow University to support NCDC and FMOH in surveillance [music] lab, emergency response coordination, risk communication, and infection prevention and control.

[00:01:53]>> Digitalization was advanced in such [music] a way that surveillance became very near. near to the clients, near to the programs, and near to the systems.

[00:02:01]I really want to see how we could reflect on that in what we're going to be sharing right now. We've been able to develop and build a very interactive and intuitive dashboard that if you're in the local [singing and music] government, if you're in the facility, you can click and see all of the assets on M.

[00:02:19]If you are a state epidemiologist and you want to see, for instance, what Where is my oxygen plants?

[00:02:25]Or you're curious to know where is the zonal integrated lab? Or you're curious to know where are the motorbikes that Dr. Emperor spoke about? Or where is the platforms that we have um to advance an agile and responsive surveillance system? You just click on it and immediately, voila, it opens up.

[00:02:43]>> Conversations today will dig deeper into how do we leverage what has been done?

[00:02:49]And how do we move it forward? How do we amplify the voices and the impact of C19R M and draw out the lessons and see how we can grow from here.

[00:02:58]>> The only thing that was emphasized was operate a unique system that gives equal rights to representative from public, private, civil society sectors.

[00:03:17]So, if there is anything called lessons that CCM learned so far, it is the power of partnership.

[00:03:27]>> Existing health care systems at the primary, secondary, tertiary levels could now be um would I say multi could provide multi-faceted services. So, um for instance, TB services, HIV services, uh systems that could provide just TB and HIV services could now um be leveraged for immunization, um maternal and child health. There was also the malaria program which I think um the project actually um supported.

[00:03:58]So, it's no longer just a one-stop um system we're running at our health care um facilities, but integrated care where people go in and they can receive comprehensive care. [music] >> Um, when we have a leadership that's responsive, um that's a visionary, um that knows what wants to be achieved, then it becomes a lot easier to set a plan in motion. And um so, looking at Lagos um as an example, um um COVID-19 most specifically, um so, if you recall, I think we had the Ebola festival in like 2014, and between that time up until 2020 that we had COVID, um so, Lagos had invested um a huge um amount of resources in building up biosecurity, biosafety within the states. Um for example, there are a couple of conferences that were done, there were trainings that were conducted for health care workers. Um Lagos has a biosafety BSL-3 laboratory um that belongs to the state government that can actually diagnose any um emerging pathogens. And that again goes to show that um Lagos has put in place the system, the structure, the the mechanism um to respond appropriately.

[00:05:06]>> The community-based surveillance that we've gotten through this grant, I can attest to you has really strengthened our, you know, health systems in terms of um emergencies detection and response.

[00:05:23]And um why are we saying this? It's because we we we have it all before such a grant.

[00:05:30]The lingering issues around, you know, even the inadequate workforce capacities, the timeliness of reporting, and you know, the gaps, you know, around um signal detection really was was a problem.

[00:05:45]So, on getting this grant, you've attested to that. We've piloted some for CBS and because we felt CBS surveillance has to be taken to the community. It has to be brought down to the community because everything start there.

[00:06:00]>> What we had was more of disease specific networks. So we tried to tailor it. I think Nigeria is the first country in the world that tried that approach bringing in more than eight disease areas to do a diagnostic network optimization. And uh The good thing is that we use our local content. We developed our software ourselves in country. We also do the optimization in country using local content. So that is in line with sustainability and we are trying to ensure that there's that integration platform for everybody.