The Federal Government, on Monday, warned about the possibility of another pandemic if the country fails to take advantage of the opportunities presented by COVID-19 to develop its health infrastructure.

Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, who raised the alarm while inaugurating the Board of Experts (BoE) of the Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme (HSRDIS) said “if we lose the sense of the moment, we will be confronted with another pandemic and we will find ourselves starting all over again.

“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.”

Mustapha expressed worry that noted that there are over 10,000 public primary healthcare centres scattered inwards and villages across the country but they are ill-equipped, ineffective, and not being put into use but we keep building them.

He appealed to members of the Board of Experts to also look at governance structures in the healthcare sector apart from your primary responsibilities.

COVID-19 the SGF said, “has exposed the weaknesses in our health system, in our governance system, in our security infrastructure, in our inclusiveness and creating social safety nets for our people.”

This intervention by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) he said “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.”

He cautioned that “it will be the greatest disappointment of our time and of our generation if we do not seize the opportunity of the moment to redress all the deficiencies of the defects that we’ve had in our health and other infrastructure in this country.”

Boss Mustapha said: “This particular time is an eye-opener and it has revealed the depth of the weaknesses in the system.

I have seen how the levels of government have abdicated their responsibilities when it comes to dealing with educational or health matters.”

In the last three months, he said he has come to realise that there has been a total abdication of responsibility in terms of management, funding, in terms of control in terms of direction and building capacity.

He told members of the BoE that the issue of governance has become very important “so that we don’t have people in government abdicating their responsibilities and walking away with it.”

Earlier, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele said that “currently, 20 projects valued at ₦26.278 billion have been funded under the ₦100 billion credit support intervention for the healthcare industry.”

He stated that “some of the firms that have been able to obtain funding include hospitals, research centres and pharmaceutical industries.”

However, the Director, Development Finance of the CBN, Mr Philip Yila Yusuf, clarified that the CBN has received over 27 proposals from researchers requesting for ₦67billion grant.

The grant is to enable them to develop vaccines, advanced drugs or manufacturing of different types of products that will enable Nigeria to solve different kinds of health care challenges plaguing the country.

According to Philip Yila Yusuf, “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.”

Yila Yusuf explained that “this grant is different from the hundred billion naira health care sector intervention that is for manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, hospitals who want to make money from the Deposit Money Banks to either expand or revitalize the lines that they have.” (Nigerian Tribune)

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