Stephanie Igben and John Omo-Izirein
In a bid to facilitate access to essential commodities and routine healthcare services during a health emergency period, Civil Society in Malaria Control, Immunization and Nutrition (ACOMIN) has launched a COVID-19 Response Mechanism that would help reduce gaps and challenges in the country’s response to COVID-19 and preparedness for future epidemics and pandemics.
The COVID 19 Response Mechanism (C19RM) Grant seeks to address gaps in the systems and infrastructures for efficient and effective outcomes in the health systems as well as the communities and CSOs.
The states for the implementation of the C19RM grant are:Delta;Ekiti;Lagos; Cross River; Federal Capital Territory (FCT); Edo; Anambra; Kaduna; Kano; Jigawa; Nasarawa; Plateau; Jigawa; Kwara; Ondo, and Oyo.
Speaking at a media briefing on the modalities of the project, the ACOMIN State Co-ordinator, Mrs Bunmi Tejumola, disclosed that the impact of COVID 19 can be witnessed across all disease areas leading to a 70 to 80 per cent decline in service uptake.
She explained that the national TB programme recorded a 30 per cent reduction in Genexpert testing in the first few weeks of COVID-19 lockdown during the first wave.
Similarly, she disclosed that routine malaria diagnosis and treatment access was disrupted, and the implementation of the Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) and the Therapeutic Efficacy Studies (TES) were also halted.
“Routine malaria diagnosis and treatment access was disrupted and the implementation of the Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) The impact of COVID 19 on HIV, tuberculosis, or malaria could be minimised by maintaining these core services, according to a recent report from Global Fund highlights,” she said.
Tejumola warned that there is urgent need to scale up adaptive measures to continue HIV, TB and malaria services, to ramp up delivery of critical supplies for the COVID-19 response and prevent health care systems from collapse.
“The C19RM/RSSH grant is geared towards the following priority interventions; gender-based violence prevention and post violence care, respond to human rights and gender related barriers, social mobilization, building community linkages and coordination, institutional capacity building planning and leadership development.
“The C19RM component of the grant is aimed at supporting the efforts at preventing, treating and strengthening systems on COVID-19 containment as well as preparedness for future pandemics. It seeks to address gaps in the systems and infrastructures through strategic interventions so as to ensure efficient and effective health outcomes It will also integrate the responses of health systems, communities and CSOS to COVID-19, such that all will contribute their respective quota in achieving the desired results across the states of implementation.
“The RSSH component will contribute to making foundational changes by strengthening the health systems in Nigeria through targeted interventions that support the federal government to set policies, strategies and standards as well as plan, monitor, and review progress against those standards, governance and planning reforms that align with national policies, standards, and strategies to drive sustainable improvements to maximize impact on ATM (AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) and other diseases.”
