The Nigerian Ministry of Defence (NMOD) and the U.S. Department of Defence (DOD) has launched the Nigeria Bio-preparedness initiative in Lagos. It is a collaborative effort to increase the response level of health officials in clinical laboratories across West Africa to tackle outbreaks of communicable diseases in the sub-region.
The Nigeria Bio-preparedness Initiative (NBI) seeks to deploy an integrated and sustained clinical bioresponse capacity for outbreaks of highly communicable, dangerous infectious diseases in Nigeria and the sub-region.
Danjuma Sheni, permanent secretary, Ministry of Defence, in his open address at the bio-preparedness initiative launch, said the 3-day training is to strengthen the capacity of participants in area of research to detect and respond appropriately and promptly to public health emergencies.
Danjuma, who was represented by Toyin Akinlade, head, Medical Services, NMOD, stated that efforts have been made to accelerate research and development of an Ebola vaccine in Nigeria. “Soon, the JWARG study titled ‘Severe Infectious Disease Surveillance and Detection in West Africa’ RV 466 is to commence in 3 NMOD health facilities,” he said.
According to the Perm Sec., “It is hoped that the outcome of the bio-surveillance sites assessment of 68 Nigeria Army Reference Hospital Yaba, Lagos will expedite necessary steps towards having a dedicated bio-containment facility in Nigeria.”
John Bray, U.S. Consul General, in his welcome address said the collaboration is designed so that the international community, especially the countries involved can respond effectively to the next pandemic.
“What we are hoping to do is set up a world-class diagnostic laboratory that can share medical information capable of preventing the next pandemic,” he said.
The study is aimed at identifying common pathogens in West Africa that could pose public health threat, contain and treat emerging infectious diseases.
Established in August 2017 at the request of the NMOD, the initiative brings together government agencies, military and academic partners from Nigeria and the United States.
The Nigeria biopreparedness is collaboration between the Nigerian Ministry of Defence Health Implementation Programme (NMOD/HIP) and the US Walter Reed Programme-Nigeria (WRP-N) on a range of infectious disease research and response in Lagos, Abuja, and other states of the federation.
Bio-preparedness is a follow up to the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak of 2015 that revealed the weak prevention efforts, inadequate disease detection mechanism and lack of sufficient capacity to respond to public health emergencies in the affected countries. Nevertheless, the action resulted in a proactive response to prevent a recurrence of the epidemic diseases in the sub-region, as such the West Africa Research Group (JWARG), was initiated in Lagos on 26 June 2016.
SEYI JOHN SALAU
