.

By Chioma Obinna

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic stretching health systems across the world, Civil Society Organisations, CSOs have called for urgent need for states to improve their capacity to prevent, detect and respond to outbreaks.

Speaking during a review meeting of the Lagos State Emergency Preparedness and Response, EPR, Advocacy Plan with Civil Society Organisations and Media groups in Lagos, the Lagos State Coordinator of the Prevent Epidemics Project funded by the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), implemented by Legislative Advocacy Initiative for Sustainable Development (LISDEL) in partnership with the Lagos State Civil Society participation for Development, LACSOP, Tina Obinna-Anikpe said the pandemic has exposed what she described as the “abysmal” state of public health infrastructures for the prevention, detection, and response to the outbreak of major infectious diseases.

According to Obinna-Anikpe, said the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the dire need for a more resilient health system.

Noting that to achieve improved health security, Obinna-Anikpe said it requires all stakeholders’ involvement, from the provision of sound legal, institutional and policy framework for EPR, and adequate investment in epidemic preparedness and response, to the commitment of state governments to implement EPR in the state.

She said improved budgetary allocation and releases were necessary to sustain public financing for epidemic preparedness and response.

“In 2001, African Union countries met and pledged to allocate at least 15 per cent of their annual budget to the health sector, which became known as the Abuja Declaration and Lagos State is progressing to attaining this benchmark. In Lagos State government Y2021 health sector allocation was 9.11 per cent of the overall annual Y2021 Budget size.

This is quite promising to achieve the 15 per cent budget allocation to the health sector. Allocation from the state Ministry of Health budget for EPR related budget line within the department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Global Health was captured under the budget description; International Disease and Surveillance (budget code 41118). This budget line has been described as limited because it does not address all the relevant components of EPR.

Despite this limitation, budget performance has been suboptimal at less than 20 per cent (18 per cent budget performance in Y2020). “It is therefore imperative to create a budget line that addresses all the relevant components of EPR as guided by the NCDC within the MOH.”

She said improving health security investments in Lagos State was paramount and to achieve progress, there is a strong need for a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral approach towards engaging the executive and legislative arms of the government as well as civil society organisations to remove finance and policy bottlenecks that have previously muffled progress for EPR in Lagos State.

She called for a strong coalition for advocating for the prioritisation of health security, adding that evidence-based advocacy actions are necessary to facilitate prompt & immediate releases of epidemic preparedness and response fund for the planned activities.

Obinna-Anikpe stressed the need for increased awareness among policymakers on the need to prioritise health security actions in the state.

Obinna-Anikpe added that the Lagos State Ministry of Health through the newly established department of Epidemiology, Biosecurity and Global Health was responsible for preparedness and response to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases involves in Lagos State.

She further disclosed that the development of various legal, policy and institutional frameworks are ongoing in Lagos including the development of the Lagos emergency preparedness, biobanking and bio-security plan policy document, noting that the s draft policy document was yet to be finalised and operationalised for EPR in the state.