‘National Assembly to ensure release of budgetary allocation for NTDs response’

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Yahaya Oloriegbe, has expressed the readiness of the National Assembly to ensure prompt release of budgetary allocation for Neglected Tropical Diseases to curb their spread in the country.

Speaking at an event organised by Nigeria National Task Team (NNTT) on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in Abuja, Oloriegbe, who decried the high burden of NTDs in the country, stressed the need for lawmakers to include the elimination of NTDs on the list of their constituency projects.

He said: “At the National Assembly, we are committed to ensuring sustained budgeting and release for NTD programmes across the country, as well as oversight through the Senate and House of Representative Committees on Health and National Task Team, in addition to mobilising relevant stakeholders, as we have done today, to commit to ending these diseases.

“I urge civil societies, present here, to continue to act as the soul of the society, while paying increased attention to NTDs. As I have always maintained, access to good health should indeed be a basic human right.”

Also speaking, the Senator representing Lagos Central, Oluremi Tinubu, observed that NTDs thrive in communities without clean water and with inadequate sewerage systems, adding that these diseases are preventable if measures are put in place to curb them.

Tinibu stressed the need for private organisations to be assisted towards curbing NTDs in the country, as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

She said: “We don’t have a lot of awareness about the diseases. It died a long time ago. The need in Lagos is quite different from the need in other states. I don’t believe there is a donor fatigue. Most potential donors are investing in trivialities. We can get them to do what is necessary. NTDs are preventable. This is where we should get private organisations to partners through CSR.”