Advocacy health platform, Nigeria Health Watch, is set to host a health security forum against the backdrop of how countries including Nigeria were particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Themed ‘Decentralising health security, lessons from COVID-19’, the forum will take place tomorrow in Abuja, and will bring together stakeholders across the national and subnational levels, the private sector, development partners/donors, and civil society organisations.

The health security forum will enable relevant stakeholders to explore how existing response structures or systems performed during the COVID-19 pandemic, how private sector investments and partnerships were harnessed and the opportunities to strengthen the existing health security structures at the sub-national level.

Discussions would include how capacities built during the pandemic can be sustained to strengthen the country’s health security, especially at the sub-national level.

Speaking about the forum, Managing Director, Nigeria Health Watch, Vivianne Ihekweazu said: “We cannot overlook the fact that the health sector in Nigeria has been historically underfunded.

“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how much more work and investments need to be made, to strengthen our health system, enabling the country to be better prepared to respond to future epidemic outbreaks.

“Vulnerable and marginalized populations were hit particularly hard by the pandemic and pre-existing inequalities were further exacerbated. We are hosting this health security policy dialogue because we need to ensure that the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic are applied to future epidemic outbreaks and the strengthening of the country’s health security architecture becomes a national priority.”