By Our Correspondent<\/p>\n
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Tajudeen Abbas, has called for a carefully coordinated and adequately funded national response to HIV\/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, warning that institutional reforms must not weaken specialised disease-control programmes or compromise their effectiveness.
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\nAbbas made the call Wednesday while declaring open a one-day public hearing on a bill seeking to amend the National Agency for the Control of HIV and AIDS Act, 2004, to expand the agency\u2019s mandate to include tuberculosis and malaria.<\/p>\n
The bill, HB. 2523, is being considered by the House Committee on Infectious Diseases and seeks to establish a more coordinated institutional framework for combating the three major infectious diseases in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
The Speaker said the proposed amendment raised critical questions about administrative efficiency, resource mobilisation, inter-agency collaboration and accountability, stressing that the ultimate objective must be to improve health outcomes and save lives rather than merely expand an institution\u2019s responsibilities.<\/p>\n
He noted that HIV\/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria have distinct transmission patterns, prevention strategies and treatment requirements, insisting that any integration must preserve the specialised expertise, technical capacity and dedicated resources required to address each disease effectively.<\/p>\n
Abbas said the success of the proposed legislation would depend on its ability to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment while ensuring that essential healthcare services reach vulnerable populations, particularly poor households, rural communities, women and children.<\/p>\n
He urged stakeholders at the hearing to provide evidence-based recommendations on the agency\u2019s expanded responsibilities, coordination between national and subnational programmes, sustainable financing, retention of specialised personnel and the establishment of clear performance indicators.<\/p>\n
He also stressed that legislation alone could not defeat infectious diseases without sustained investment, public awareness, scientific innovation, institutional cooperation and community participation. He reaffirmed the commitment of the 10th House of Representatives to laws and policies capable of delivering tangible benefits to Nigerians.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Chairman of the House Committee on Infectious Diseases, Amobi Godwin Ogah, said the proposed amendment was designed to strengthen Nigeria\u2019s coordination of its response to HIV\/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria while mobilising sustainable domestic resources and improving accountability.<\/p>\n
Ogah said Nigeria faced a significant burden from the three diseases, with about two million people living with HIV, while the country accounted for roughly one-quarter of global malaria cases and approximately 30 per cent of malaria deaths worldwide. He added that Nigeria remained among the countries with the highest tuberculosis burdens.<\/p>\n
The committee chairman explained that the bill proposed dedicated offices for each of the three diseases within the agency, alongside a proposed HIV\/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Trust Fund to support the manufacture and distribution of medicines, treatment and other interventions. The fund would be managed by a Board of Trustees under the proposed framework.<\/p>\n
Ogah, however, emphasised that the reform was not intended to undermine existing institutions or discard the expertise developed by established disease-control programmes. He said the proposed framework must strengthen coordination while protecting technical capacity, disease-specific accountability and the integrity of applicable funding arrangements.<\/p>\n
He further noted that pressure on international development financing made it necessary for Nigeria to strengthen domestic resource mobilisation and counterpart funding, urging stakeholders to scrutinise the proposed trust fund\u2019s revenue mechanisms to ensure that they were legally sound, fiscally sustainable and transparent.<\/p>\n
Ogah called on participants to approach the hearing with patriotism and open minds, guided by evidence and the public interest, expressing hope that their recommendations would produce credible, implementable legislation capable of strengthening Nigeria\u2019s response to the three diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Tajudeen Abbas, has called for a carefully coordinated and adequately funded national response to HIV\/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, warning that institutional reforms must not weaken specialised disease-control programmes or compromise their effectiveness. Abbas made the call Wednesday while declaring open a one-day public hearing on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18882"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18885,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882\/revisions\/18885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}