By Hassan Zaggi
The Federal Government has disclosed that it will establish what it christened health research fund in order to improve health research in the country.
It has also disclosed that it is currently working on providing free cancer treatment for Nigerians who have been diagnosed with cancer.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate and the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Tunji Alaisan, disclosed this at a media briefing in Abuja, weekend.
Dr. Alaisan insisted that the government cannot fund health research alone, hence, a dedicated fund for research will be established to pull resources into it so that institutes will have access to funds for research.
He insisted that the government will coordinate health research strategy for the country, hence, eliminate “all the inefficiencies we have currently in our research processes in the country.”
According to him: “We have many research institutes and Councils in Nigeria, we have the manpower including professors scattered all over the country.
“They are yearning to do research. What we are going to do differently is that, we cant continue to ask for more money from the government. We will first look inward. We will coordinate our resources. We will look at what we have now, see what we need and ensure a robust research process.
“In most countries of the world, they have dedicated part of their budget for research. We cant ask the government to do everything. We will mobilise resources that we have, we will develop research centres where everybody can now go in, look at the kind of research they can do both in Nigeria and outside the country.
“We are working on putting good process together where we can actually get more international funding for research, but they will be in coordinated manner not the fragmented way it is now.
“We are going create a Research Fund. We are going to talk to Mr President on the need to have a research fund which is currently lacking.
“Individual research agencies are being given their budget but now, we will create a research fund that will be dedicated to research. We will have probably 5 per cent operational cost to it.”
“Whatever money we will have in that research bucket,” he further explained: “will be used in doing research.
“What we will be getting from the research like drug production we can now begin to get research centres to get royalty for the drugs that will be going into the market.
“There will be products that will be developed and get royalty that will be coming back to their centres. We will begin to incentivize them to do more. There are research that we will do that will have intellectual property rights that we are yet to harnessed.”
Cancer care
Responding to a question on the lack of adequate cancer care in the country, the Minister said: “You are very correct about the incidences of cancer and assessing cancer care.
“We saw some improvement in communicable diseases but what we saw in our assessment is that the incidences of non communicable diseases are going up. Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension and cancer that is why we have to create in an effective manner what we need to do.
“I am glad to tell you that about one year ago, the National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment (NICRAT) after about 12-14 years of planning has taken up. That agency will be helping in advising the government creating policies, interventions from prevention and research in cancer.
“There is also some funds domicile in the ministry call cancer care, we will galvanise more money into that burse and work with tertiary centres so that we can begin to provide cancer care free of charge directly from the government. Government will fund those cancer treatment and interventions.
“We will now be working in providing policies to prevent cancer. One important part is the launch of the Human Papiloma Virus (HPV) vaccine that will be launch sometimes in November. This is to prevent cervical cancer.”
Earlier, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Pate said that his administration will work with governments at all levels and all critical stakeholders to improve the health of Nigerians.
“All of you are aware that there are major issues in the health sector. Nigerians are experiencing difficulty in many areas of health but there are also efforts aiming at improving those.
“We are blessed that we have of 400 thousand health workers of different categories. They are working under difficult circumstances to improve the health of Nigerians. We have to appreciate what our health workers have done, but there is a lot more that we need to do.
“We will focus on four areas. First is the quality of governance in the health system. How we lead, how our agencies and our hospitals are led. The leadership of the hospitals. We will appraise the leadership of our Teaching Hospitals, Federal Medical Centres and Specialists Hospitals so that there is a way to appraise performance.
“We will minimize political interference in our hospitals. That is too important to be left in realm of politics. We will strengthen the regulatory capacity of the agencies like NAFDAC to regulate better the quality of products brought into Nigeria.
“We will work with the states to improve the regulatory functions at the sub national level.”
Other pillars include population health outcomes, medical industrialisation as well as value chain and improving health security.
