About forty percent of all medical supplies for COVID-19 response in Nigeria was supplied by the one United Nations (UN) basket fund through Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
Edward Kallon, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator, made this known when he lead UN agencies including UNICEF on a delegation to Enugu state government to reinforce the partnership between the UN and Enugu state government and also address the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in the state.
The visit he said would allow the UN to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs to build back better and to continue to create durable solutions for economic transformation in Enugu.
He said: “UN has been quite strategic in pulling together resources and also delivering as one to support the government of Nigeria in the response of COVID-19. We establish the one UN response and also put in place the basket fund, we were able to mobilize $73 million used to
procure medical supplies that were sent to all the States in Nigeria through NCDC.
According to Kallon after his team had visited the governor and Enugu state ministry of health. “Our mission to Enugu is to meet with the state authorities, that is the state executive council members to actually, try to see how we can reinforce our partnership with the Enugu state government to continue supporting them to combat the effect of COVID-19 we also try to see how the UN can bring the best global practices to support the economic transformation effort of the state of Enugu.”
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He commended the effort the Enugu government has made so far, but warned that everybody should be away and clear of one important part that COVID-19, it is with us here for some time to come and the key issue here is vaccination, vaccinations.
The challenge he said was how to ensure that 70% of the population are vaccinated for high immunity to be reached, “this is also critical and closely link to that is the issue of compliance with non-pharmaceutical measures”
He appealed to institutions and organizations to ensure people comply with non-pharmaceutical measures, access vaccines so that we can develop the high immunity that is required to manage the COVID-19, pointing out that Covid-19 is here to stay with us as WHO always says.
“We might be tired of covid-19, but it is not tired with us, is here. And WHO advised us that we should sustain our guide, we should continue to test, isolate, quarantine confirmed cases, and also follow the non-pharmaceutical measures.
Earlier The Resident and Humanitarian coordinator Kallon commended all the other UN agencies in the state for their efforts in supporting development efforts in Enugu state.
He added UNICEF has strengthened the national health management information system (NHIMS) to improve data quality through capacity building, provision of data collection tools, and also provided resources to strengthen routine immunization and OBR both within the health system and communities.
Ikechukwu Obi, Enugu state commissioner for health, called on residents of Enugu to visit health facilities for their vaccines.
He said that vaccines are available at health care facilities in all the local governments in Enugu state.
