Health
National Health Bill: Sen. Banigo Bags Award For Vaccine Advocacy
By Kingsley Okoye
Vaccine Network for Disease Control (VNDC), a civil society organisation promoting vaccine access, has conferred its Champion Award on Sen. Ipalibo Banigo for advancing vaccine provision and health sector reforms nationwide.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the award followed Senate passage of a bill amending the National Health Act 2014, aimed at strengthening Nigeria’s primary healthcare financing framework.
NAN also reports that the amendment seeks to increase the Basic Health Care Provision Fund from one per cent to two per cent of the Federal Government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The bill, sponsored by Banigo, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, awaits concurrence by the House of Representatives and final assent by President Bola Tinubu.
At the award ceremony in Abuja, VNDC Executive Director, Chika Offor, said the development marked a major milestone for vaccine advocacy and primary healthcare strengthening across Nigeria.
“Today is a happy day for us at CSO because our mama, our vaccine champion, has supported the passing of a bill by the Senate to increase the National Health Act from one per cent to two per cent.”
She said the bill would strengthen primary healthcare centres nationwide, improve child survival outcomes, and ensure safer maternal health services across communities.
“It means that children can access care. It means that lives will be saved. It means that our women can do their pregnancy with happiness.”
Offor thanked Banigo for sponsoring the bill, noting that she played a key role in ensuring its passage through the legislative process successfully.
“So, I want to say thank you to her because she is the one that pushed this bill, she is the one that helped us to make sure that this bill saw the light of day.”
She also commended the Senate for prioritising public health, saying the bill would improve healthcare delivery across key government health agencies and intervention programmes.
“This bill is passing through the various gateways from MPACD to National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to Ministry of Health to Emergency.”
She expressed optimism that the House of Representatives would concur and President Bola Tinubu would assent to the bill.
“The President is the father of all, he will assent with joy. I am sure he will assent because it concerns his children.”
Banigo said she sponsored the bill to improve funding for basic healthcare delivery and address Nigeria’s growing population health demands.
She said the existing one per cent allocation was insufficient to address widespread preventable diseases affecting communities across the country.
She explained that the fund supported NHIA, NCDC and emergency care systems, ensuring coordinated healthcare delivery across multiple intervention pathways.
“So, you will see that if we have enough funds across these pathways, we will be able to deal with more than 80 per cent of the health problems in the system.”
Banigo expressed confidence that President Tinubu would assent to the bill, describing him as supportive of health sector reforms.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Abiemwense Moru