By Admin
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, NCDC, has highlighted data quality, multi-sectoral approach, continuous community and stakeholder engagement as key factors to effectively combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, AMR, in the country.
The Director General of the NCDC, Dr. Jide Idris stated this in Abuja at the Commonwealth Partnership for Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme.
Dr. Idris, who was represented by the Head of AMR and Infection Prevention and Control at the NCDC, Dr. Tochi Okwor expressed worry that some Nigerians rely on patent medicine vendors out of convenience or financial constraints.
Idris gave an assurance that the agency would strengthen partnership with regulatory bodies to ensure responsible antibiotic use to build a resilient health system.
“We are working through a multi-sectoral, participatory approach to understand why people prefer patent medicine vendors over hospitals. We cannot ignore these realities, so we are bringing in social scientists to study these behaviours and develop solutions that work for the Nigerian context” he stressed
On his part, the World Health Organisation, WHO Country Representative, Dr. Laxmikant Chavan called for the integration of antimicrobial stewardships in Primary Health Centres to address regional gaps.
Earlier, a pharmacist and founding partner of Ducit Blue Solutions – under Global health partnerships, Estelle Mbadiwe said Nigeria had expanded its key health facilities to address the issues of substandard and falsified antimicrobials.
Also, the Programmes Coordinator for Global Health Partnerships, Jihoon Yoo said Nigeria was one of the eight countries that participated in the commonwealth Partnership program and called for collaborative and sustained efforts to tackle AMR.
