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NCDC Weekly Epidemiological Report: Issue: Volume 11 No. 49: 30th November – 6th December 2020

Countries
Nigeria
Sources
Govt. Nigeria
Publication date
Origin
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Strengthening Military Collaboration for Public Health Emergency Management

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has continued to play a critical role as the National Focal Point for the implementation of International Health Regulations (IHR) in Nigeria. This includes strengthening the multi-sectoral collaboration for health security, working with relevant Government Ministries, Departments and Parastatal as well as development partners.

One of the key outputs from the 2017 Joint External Evaluation (JEE) of IHR core capacities in Nigeria, was the limited capacity in “Linking Public Health and Security”. This technical area recognises the critical role that security agencies play in contributing to national health security. The Nigerian military represents an asset to public health due to their national presence and ability to deploy resources to hard-to-reach areas as well as to security compromised areas during emergency response. This has been utilised during events such as Nigeria’s polio response in the North-East.

To strengthen the collaboration between the military and relevant public health institutions, NCDC has continued to build the capacity of the military in public health emergency management. In line with this, NCDC conducted parallel Public Health Emergency Operations training for security agencies in Nigeria. This held from 7th -11th November 2020 (Southern region) and 14th – 18th December, 2020 (Northern region) The objectives of the training were to:

  1. Train military medical commissioned officers on Public Health Emergency Operations.

  2. Link trained military medical commissioned officers with the respective public health emergency operations centres of their locations for mentorship and collaboration.

  3. Provide framework for establishment of military medical emergency operations centres to support response to public health emergencies.

  4. Develop reporting and information sharing mechanism between State PHEOCs, NCDC and the military for public health emergencies

With 120 military health personnel (army, military and air force) drawn from all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, the training methodology included power-point presentations, mentoring and simulation exercise on key thematic areas of emergency response management, and EOC processes.

The training provided an opportunity to strengthen our collaboration in linking public health and security services. The NCDC remains committed to working with the military and other public health workforce to ensure effective coordination of outbreak preparedness and response for national health security.

Summary of Incidents

  1. Information for this disease was retrieved from the Technical Working Group and Situation Reports

  2. Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for this disease is reported for confirmed cases only

  3. Information for this disease was retrieved from IDSR 002 data

  4. CFR for this disease is reported for total cases i.e. suspected + confirmed