In a bid to grow the health sector in Nigeria, the Federal Government is making efforts to reduce the level Nigerians seeking medical tourism abroad.

Speaking on Friday at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) in Abuja on arrival from BRICS conference in Brazil, the Minister of State for Health , Dr. Iziaq Kunle Salako stated that most nations in the world have similar health challenges of medical tourism abroad.

“The challenges of most countries in health are similar with the health issues that we also face in our country, neglected tropical diseases like tuberculosis, like leprosy and so on and so forth.

“There are challenges of non-communicable diseases like hypertension, diabetes, so we had discussions around how to cooperate, how to learn from one another to ensure that we are able to address some of these challenges.”

He explained that challenges also around data governance, deployment of artistic intelligence into health sector, use of data health systems were considered paramount to the growth of an efficient world health system.

“All these are very useful for us to align, one of the key priority of the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is to reverse direction of medical tourism from outbound to inborn. Obviously, a lot more can be done in the country.

“Quite a number of people who otherwise would have gone abroad for health care will now be staying in Nigeria. And we also see the possibility of also servicing the entire West African region.

“Nigeria is the only West African country as a member of BRICS, so we see a lot of possibilities around that. As you know, Nigeria became a partner member this year, which is basically a recognition of the strategic position of Nigeria as a country by the Organization”.

While at the meeting in Brazil, the Minister said the conference was an opportunity to discuss global health issues. So there was discussion around issues like universal health coverage, issues around health insurance, domestic manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and vaccines, prevention, control of non communicable diseases and so on and so forth.

“Most of these issues aligns with the priority agenda of President within the health sector. So it was an opportunity for us to showcase some of the reforms agenda that are ongoing, and also express our interest in strengthening South Side cooperation, particularly, we discuss with China, Brazil and other big countries.

“As you know, if you look at some of the capacities of countries like China within pharmaceutical or manufacturing, India that produce virtually 60% of the pharmaceuticals in the world, or even Brazil that is also very strong within technological space, we had to dialogue with them .

“A strategic dialogue mechanism has already been established in Brazil, very soon, before the end of this month, there will be an MoU to strengthen relationships,” the Minister explained.

Salako said government efforts are meant to create an alternative from what “we used to know, particularly within the ambit of the challenges that we currently face in global health financing.”

In January this year, in recognition of the strategic position of Nigeria and demonstration of confidence in the country, Nigeria was admitted as a partner country of BRICS.

BRICS (now BRICS+) was formed 16 years ago and consists some of the most populous and influential nations in the world (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Indonesia etc) who are cooperating to reform global governance and advocating for the interest of global south. BRICS+ represents 46% of the world’s population, and 25% of the world’s landmass. (Nigerian Tribune)