WHO seeks improved funding for health in Nigeria

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WHO seeks improved funding for health in Nigeria

The World Health Organisation has said Nigeria is still far from meeting the 2001 15 per cent Abuja Declaration on improving the health sector.

WHO’s Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr Walter Mulombo, who disclosed this in Abuja, called for more funding of the health sector to meet the said target.

According to him, the sector was not adequately funded, compared to areas such as defence, among others.

Mulombo said health remained a human right and not a luxury or consumable.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that in April 2001, heads of state of African Union countries met and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 per cent of their annual budget to improve the health sector.

“In Nigeria where a proposed target was set that 15 per cent of total government budget should go to health, until today we are still far from achieving the target.

“We need to start talking about human rights violations because it is not acceptable for any child to miss a vaccine,’’ he was quoted by NAN as saying.

He further said some areas where the organisation accessed showed that 80 per cent of the funding went into tertiary hospitals.

According to him, primary healthcare is where 80 per cent of the population in the communities get their first exposure to healthcare services.