Transcript: Strengthening Health Security through National Public Health Institutes

Text on screen: Strengthening Health Security through National Public Health Institutes
Dr. Chickwe Ihehweazu, FFPH
Director General
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)

Text on screen: Strengthening Health Security through National Public Health Institutes
Dr. Chickwe Ihehweazu, FFPH
Director General
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)
Wednesday, March 10, 2021 @ Noon
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Hubert Department of Global Health Seminar Series

Emory Rollins School of public health

Text on screen: STRONG, STABLE, NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH INSTITUTES
>> So how do we operationalize this? You know, nobody disagrees with the context — concept of global health security. Nobody disagrees that we need to build our surveillance systems. Nobody disagrees that we need to build our lab architecture. But how do we do this in our countries? Who manages it? Who defines what needs to be done and what doesn’t need to be done? This can only be done, in my opinion, through national — strong national public health institutes in every single country. Ministries of health are extremely important institutions to establish health policy strategies, monitor and implement defined budgets, allocate resources. Ministries of health are not operational bodies that can respond — have the flexibility, the technical ability to respond to events. So we’ve been very strong in advocating for national public health institutes, and many people have been working on this concept for years, but it is only now beginning to get the traction that it really needs, as not something that is nice to have, but an existential requirement for us to really get serious about global health security.

Text on screen: About NCDC – Nigeria’s Public Health Institute
Across three campuses – HQ(FCT), National Reference Lab (Gaduwa), Central Public Health Laboratory (Lagos)

Mandate
Prevent, detect, and control spread of communicable diseases

Coordinate surveillance systems to collect, analyze and interpret data on communicable diseases to guide action

Support states in responding to small outbreaks, and lead response to large disease outbreaks.

Develop and maintain a network of public health laboratories

Conduct, collate, synthesis and disseminate public health research to inform policy

Coordinate the compliance with international health regulations

Nigeria Centre for Disease Control

>> The concept of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control actually started before Ebola but really came to the consciousness of Nigerians after the 2014-15 outbreak in Nigeria with these strong legal mandates that came into law in 2018. So one thing is to set up an institution. The other thing is to provide that through whatever mechanism in that country’s legal and constitutional environment, the strong legal mandate to do the work that is set up to do.

Text on screen: Critical role of National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs)

Graphic of a house with the following sitting out side the house:
Public Health Research
Public Health Laboratory
Surveillance Systems
Emergency Preparedness and Response
Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Risk Comms
Public Health Workforce Development
Infection Prevention Control
Text inside the house:
Countries WITHOUT National Public Health Institute

Graphic of a house with the following sitting inside the house:
Countries WITH National Public Health Institute
Public Health Research
Public Health Laboratory
Surveillance Systems
Emergency Preparedness and Response
Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Risk Comms
Public Health Workforce Development
Infection Prevention Control

>>So what we are advocating is to really pull all the functions together into a single National Public Health Institute that will lead on the management of these resources and the effective and efficient deployment of these resources to do that which we all want to do, which is to protect ourselves from the threat — ongoing threat of infectious diseases. Many countries have done this in one shape or form, from the U.S. CDC, obviously, to Brazil to the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, and we’re all learning from each other.

To learn more about National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) Visit: go.usa.gov/xH9hP

This video is an excerpt from the March 10, 2021 presentation by Dr. Ihekweazu at Emory University’s Hubert Department of Global Health and is produced and copyrighted by Emory University and distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The views expressed by the presenter are not necessarily the views of CDC.

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