US president Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization is threatening funding for critical health programmes like HIV/Aids and tuberculosis in different parts of the world, including Nigeria.
The Conversation Africa’s Adejuwon Soyinka asked professor of virology and former WHO Africa regional virologist Oyewale Tomori why Nigeria is heavily dependent on US funding for some of its health programmes, what’s at risk and how to mitigate the impact.
How dependent is Nigeria on US funding for health?
Sadly, Nigeria and many African countries are too dependent on US funding and other donor funding for basic health activities and interventions. These activities are the normal function of a good and responsive government which is committed to the welfare of citizens.
According to a US embassy publication, since 2021, the US has committed to providing nearly US$20 billion in health programmes in Africa. The report says in 2023 alone, the US invested over US$600 million in health assistance in Nigeria. That is about 21% of Nigeria’s 2023 annual health budget.
Nigeria has, over the years, allocated on the average about 5% of the national budget to health. Three quarters of that covers recurrent expenditure like salaries.
Nigeria’s proposed 2025 budget is ₦49.74 trillion (US$33 billion), of which ₦2.4 trillion (US$1.6 billion) (4.8%) is allocated to health. This is lower than the 5.15% allocated to health in the 2024 budget.
The private sector plays a significant role in the Nigeria’s healthcare system, providing close to 60% of healthcare services.
In recent years, traditional medicine is increasingly offering complementary and alternative medicine in support of the services provided by the federal, state and local government areas levels.
What health programmes does the US fund in Nigeria?
The US support is focused on preventing malaria, under the US President’s Malaria Initiative; ending HIV, through the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; and delivering vaccines (COVID, polio, rotavirus, IPV2 and HPV).
Malaria is a major public health concern in Nigeria. In 2021, there were an estimated 68 million cases of malaria and 194,000 deaths. Nigeria has the highest burden of malaria globally, nearly 27% of the global malaria burden.
Nigeria has a high burden of HIV – fourth in the world. A large number of Nigerians live with the virus. The national agency responsible for AIDS control reported a rate of 1,400 new HIV cases per week in 2023.
Nigeria has experienced outbreaks of yellow fever, meningitis, cholera, Lassa fever and COVID-19.
In addition to helping with managing these major diseases, the US government also provided funds to strengthen the country’s ability to prevent, detect, respond to and recover from emerging public health threats.
With these funds, a Public Health Emergency Management Programme was established and national disease surveillance systems were upgraded. Nigeria’s laboratory diagnostics were enhanced to test for Ebola, mpox, yellow fever, measles, Lassa fever, cholera and cerebrospinal meningitis.
Other countries (Japan, Germany, Canada, the UK) also provided support through building and equipping laboratories and training health workers.
What’s most at risk?
Interventions most at risk are those of which the Nigerian government has abdicated its responsibilities to the donors. They include provision of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria, insecticide-treated bed nets, malaria preventive treatments in pregnancy, provision of fast acting malaria medicines and insecticide for home spraying.
The following HIV interventions are likely to be adversely affected: HIV counselling and testing services, especially for pregnant women to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and the care of people living with HIV with TB/HIV services, as well as care and support for orphans and vulnerable children.
Sustaining laboratory capacity for rapid disease diagnosis will suffer a major setback with reduced or lack of reagents and consumables.
A huge amount of laboratory equipment is provided by donors. Servicing and replacement of equipment will be affected.
The Nigerian health sector’s challenges include inadequate funding, shortage of healthcare professionals, poor access to healthcare due to cost, poor infrastructure, and high prevalence of preventable diseases.
Cutting off US money is not likely to affect the shortage of healthcare professionals, as the major reason for the shortage is their deteriorating work environment and unsafe social environment. This environment was created by years of economic downturn and social insecurity in Nigeria.
Why is Nigeria still so reliant on US funding?
I think Nigeria lacks national pride as it begs for assistance to provide what it already has the resources for. The government seems to place the well-being of the citizens on a secondary status.
Many African governments assume the world owes Africa compensation for colonial activities. But to me, the danger to Nigeria’s freedom from dependency is not truly knowing what we are, who we are, and how endowed we are.
The world describes Nigeria as “resource limited” and, without thinking, Nigerians accept such name calling. Nigeria is not resource-limited, it is resource wasteful. Nigeria is not resource constrained; it is corruption constrained. Until Nigerians know who and what we are, we will never find the solution to our problems.
Nigeria’s acceptance of the tag “resource-limited” drives it to beg for assistance even in areas of its highest capability, capacity and competence and where it has highly trained people. Like disease prevention and control.
Africa has since the 1960s experienced numerous outbreaks of diseases and has acquired significant expertise in disease prevention and control. An example is the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, which was brought under control within three months with only 20 cases and eight deaths.
This was a disease that raged for three years and ravaged three countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It was reported in seven others with 28,600 cases and 11,326 deaths.
In Nigeria, the country coordinated response activities which were anchored on the participation of the community. The community was part of disease investigation, contact tracing, isolation of cases and adoption of infection, prevention and control interventions.
How can Nigeria mitigate the impact?
Nigeria must immediately provide emergency funds to cover the shortfall arising from the action of the US government. What Trump has done should have been anticipated, because he did the same things during his first term of office.
Nigeria must re-order its priorities, and provide funds to create and sustain an enabling environment for talented human resources to function effectively for disease control and prevention.
The country must prioritise disease prevention and control (in that order) through adequate and sustained funding of disease surveillance activities at all levels of governance.
Nigeria needs to decentralise disease surveillance, prevention and control by enabling states and local government areas to take responsibility. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention should coordinate state and local government areas activities, instead of acting as the controller of diseases in Nigeria.
Oyewale Tomori does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
By Oyewale Tomori, Fellow, Nigerian Academy of Science
