The Nigerian Infectious Diseases Society has called on the government at all levels to increase and sustain their investments in health security infrastructure and workforce in the country.

This is contained in a communiqué signed by the President of NIDS, Prof. Dimie Ogoina and Secretary General, Dr Mukhtar Adeiza, at the end of 11th Annual General Meeting of NIDS in Abuja on Friday.

“The NIDS calls on federal, state, and local governments in Nigeria to progressively increase and sustain their investments in health security and one health implementation.

“We urge governments at all levels in Nigeria to improve domestic funding of health security, establish, strengthen and sustain health security infrastructure, and to improve the skills of the health workforce in the country.

“We also urge relevant health authorities to enforce institutional accountability and to implement continuous quality improvement within the health system as enshrined in the National Health Act 2014.

“The conference calls for stricter regulation of sales of antimicrobial agents and the upscaling of awareness creation on antimicrobial resistance and rational antimicrobial use among all One health stakeholders and the public alike.” The communiqué noted.

According to NIDS, there is a need for improving prevention, detection and response to diphtheria and other Infectious diseases outbreaks.

It also called on all sub-national governments to fully own the response to the current diphtheria outbreak by committing financial, human, and material resources to the control of the outbreak.

It underscored the need to provide and deploy the needed diagnostics, diphtheria antitoxin, and antibiotics to affected states and communities to forestall preventable deaths due to the outbreak.

The society stated that capacity building of the health workforce on appropriate management of diphtheria cases was also a priority for immediate action.

The society added, “We call for the scale-up of routine immunisation within areas most at risk and urge relevant federal and the state government agencies to strengthen ongoing routine childhood immunisation programmes.

“They should also catch-up/adult immunisations initiatives to prevent future outbreaks due to gaps in vaccine-related herd immunity. NIDS also calls on all one health stakeholders to unite in the fight against public health threats in Nigeria through collaborative creation, development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based and locally applicable cost-effective interventions that inform policy, clinical practice, and public health decisions.”

The society stated that NIDS reaffirmed its commitment to foster collaboration among stakeholders interested and actively engaged in the prevention and control of infectious diseases in Nigeria.

It pledged to be active players in the country’s efforts to fight public health threats through advocacy, research, and training.

The society is strongly aligned with a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach to addressing public health threats in Nigeria.

(NAN)