By Sola Ogundipe

As Africa’s biggest economy and the continent’s most populous nation, expectations are that Nigeria’s health infrastructure is capable of responding to acute emergencies. This became evident in 2014, when the first case of Ebola entered the country from Liberia. Nigeria used an existing surveillance system for polio to trace all people who had come in contact with the people infected with Ebola, stopping the outbreak.

Mosquito

While the country’s HIV epidemic appears to have stabilised at around 3.4 percent prevalence, the HIV/AIDS burden is one of the largest in the world after South Africa. Together with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria accounts for 40 percent of estimated malaria deaths globally. The country also ranks fifth among the world’s 22 high TB-burden countries. Given these challenges, Nigeria needs more investment in health both from domestic and international sources.

Last week, a coalition of Nigerian Health Non-Governmental Organizations called on donor countries to help the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) meet the 2017/2019 replenishment target of $13billion to safeguard achievements of the Fund which has provided HIV care and treatment to 750,000 Nigerians, treated 310,000 TB cases and ensured 93.4 million mosquito nets were in the hands of Nigerian families.

HIV

The call was made in Ibadan and Sunday Vanguard gathered from the Senior Manager, PR and Communication, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Oluwakemi Gbadamosi, who enjoined Germany and China, two leading contributors to the Global Fund, to toe the path of Japan, another leading contributor, with the country’s recent announcement of $800 million to the Global Fund’s current replenishment effort which represented a 46 percent increase in that country’s contribution to the Global Fund.

Steve Aborisade, a member of the coalition and Coordinator of Projekthope, emphasized that countries need to meet their pledge to the Global Fund to consolidate on the gains recorded through the interventions of the GFATM over the years.

The Nigerian Country Programmes Manager, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Dr. Adetayo Towolawi, added that Nigeria remains the highest beneficiary of the Global Fund with up to $1.43 billion of varying levels of assistance to the country on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria within the last 13 years, while it will be difficult to continue to offer crucial services without the support of the Fund.

“Nigeria accounts for 24 percent of the global disease burden of malaria, the largest in the world, 9 percent of the global HIV disease burden, the second-largest; and 7 percent of the TB burden, also world second-largest. If Nigeria misses it, the whole of Africa may have also missed the mark,” Aborishade stated.

“If countries fail to fund AIDS, TB and malaria with treatment and services not scaled up rapidly by 2020 (a period of four years’ time), it could result in 21 million deaths and an additional 28 million people becoming infected with HIV by 2030. If this were to happen, the world would have to pay an additional $24 billion every year for antiretroviral therapy by 2030.

“On the other hand, a timely scale-up of funding for AIDS, TB and malaria would yield a 15-fold return on investment. The status of our country Nigeria, the second largest bearer of the global burden of AIDS, 7 percent bearer of global TB burden and second largest global burden of malaria should be clear indication of where we stand,” the coalition said, in reference to a UNAIDS document.

The coalition particularly charged Germany and China to keep up their support for the Global Fund, as well for the Nigerian government to be more committed to treating her people and draw inspiration from committed countries like Japan.