The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, has said the recent intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria in the health care sector will revive the sector.
He said this while inaugurating the Board of Experts of the Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme in Abuja on Monday.
He, however, warned that Nigeria risked being confronted with another pandemic if the country failed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by COVID-19 to develop the nation’s health infrastructure.
The SGF said, “If we had built on the experiences of Ebola and other epidemics that we have dealt with in the past, probably today we wouldn’t have started with about two molecular laboratories for the testing of COVID-19.
“If you travel the shores of this country, you will find out that we have over 10,000 public primary healthcare centers scattered in wards and villages across the country, ill-equipped, ineffective, and not being put into use but we keep building them.”
He noted, “This intervention by the Central Bank of Nigeria will set us on the part of recovering our health care system in Nigeria.
“If we did not have the opportunity of reconsidering the reconstruction of our health infrastructure in this country, this is a golden opportunity that has availed itself.”
The SGF appealed to members of the Board of Experts to also look at governance structures in the healthcare sector apart from their primary responsibilities.
Speaking earlier, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said that currently, 20 projects, valued at ₦26.27bn, had been funded under the ₦100bn credit support intervention for the healthcare industry.
He noted that some of the firms that had been able to obtain funding included hospitals, research centers and pharmaceutical industries.
The Director, Development Finance of the CBN, Philip Yila Yusuf, said that the apex bank had received over 27 proposals from researchers requesting for ₦67bn grant.
The grant, he added, was to enable them develop vaccines, advanced drugs or manufacturing of different types of products that would enable Nigeria solve different kinds of health care challenges plaguing the country.
Yusuf said “What we have inaugurated today is the Healthcare Research and Development Interventions Scheme. This is a grant to researchers, institutions that want to embark on research, either to develop vaccines or herbal medicines, or drugs that could address not only COVID-19 but other infectious diseases that affect our people.”
