Nigeria hinges towards passage of NCDC bill with Monday Senate public hearing
Nigerian senators will today Monday January 22, hold a public hearing on the bill for an Act to establish the National Centre for Disease and Control, NCDC. This session is expected to be attended by the health minister, Prof Isaac Adewole.
The #Senate will tomorrow, Monday January 22, conduct public hearing on the #NCDC bill. I intend to be part of the deliberations.
— Prof. Isaac Adewole (@IsaacFAdewole) January 21, 2018
Last year, the Chairman of the Senate committee on primary health care and communicable diseases, Mao Ohuabunwa, promised that the bill would be passed into law before the end of 2017.
Also in his 2018 budget presentation, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, enjoined the lawmakers to quickly pass the bill into law.
ccording to the president, passing the bill into law will enable the government to consolidate on the successes recorded to date.
He spoke on the outbreaks the country has recorded so far this year.
“During 2017, the country had a number of disease outbreaks such as Meningitis, Yellow Fever, Monkey Pox and Lassa Fever,” Buhari said.
Ohuabunwa on the other hand said the Senate was committed to the development of the health sector adding that this is why it created a committee for primary healthcare and communicable disease instead of, ”just maintaining the status quo.”
He assured the agency of the Senate’s support in achieving success in its plans for the prevention and control of diseases in the country.
“With the prevalence of disease outbreak in Nigeria, we are geared and ready to collaborate with NCDC to ensure that we can achieve the universal health care coverage, or health for all in 2020. We mean it when we say the establishment of an institution of NCDC is important and we are legalising it.
“Work is in progress on the bill and before the end of the year, the bill it will be ‘legalised.’ This year, we have resolved to support NCDC, National Agency for Control of AIDS, NACA and primary health care because of the prevalence of disease outbreaks across the country.