National Health Insurance Scheme Now Covers HIV, TB Enrollees

Ebere Nwoji

The National Health Insurance Authority, NHIA, says it has expanded the National Health Insurance Scheme to cover enrollees suffering from life threatening health cases like HIV (PLHIV) and Tuberculoses (TB) patients, with pilots under way in four states.

These ailments were initially not among sicknesses under the coverage of the NHIS scheme.

But given NHA’s determination to bring Nigerians under the scheme’s coverage and reduce number of people getting health services through out-of-pocket payment, the authority expanded its portfolio to give coverage to those under these two special cases.

This was disclosed by the Acting Director, Lagos regional office of the NHIA, Mrs. Aisha Abubakar Haruna, who represented the Director General, NHIA, Dr. Kelechi Ohiri, at the Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Association of Insurance and Pension Editors, NAIPE in Lagos.

Ohiri who announced that health insurance now covers no fewer than 20million Nigerians up from 16.8million in 2023 and achieving 99percent of the 2027 presidential target explained that the authority achieved an additional 800,000 beneficiaries who joined the basic health care provision fund bringing the total to 2.6 million as of May 2025.

Ohiri also stated the NHIA embarked on addressing drug shortages and care delays via the multi-project strategy.

He said: “NHIA has focused on expanding health insurance coverage, improving quality of care and protecting the rights of enrollees while strategically and creatively deploying health insurance to save lives in a way that contributes and sustains significant benefit to the health sector.

“As of last month, June, NHIA has achieved 20 million enrollees in the health insurance. This was the combined efforts by the state health insurance agencies, health maintenance organisations and the National Health Insurance Scheme.

“As a matter of fact, we have exceeded the mandates that have been given to us by the president. He gave us a target which we exceeded in June. We have a significant jump from 16.8 million Nigerians enrolled by 2023.

“By June 2025, we have hit 20 million. We have also embarked on addressing drug shortages and care delays via the multi-project strategy.”

The NHIA DG noted that from 2024 to 2025, NHIA has strategically intervened in the revision of tariffs revising the accreditation processes and mandating one hour limit on care authorisation while mitigating any previous issues for medicine shortages, denial, delay in issue codes and provider payment delays.