The Director of Public Health, Federal Ministry of Health, Evelyn Ngige said during its 62nd National Council of Health that Federal government will engage law enforcement agencies to fish out culprits whose actions enable diversion of Anti-Malaria Drugs (ACT) supplied by Global Fund.
Ngige said Global Fund financed the procurement and distribution of 16,290,250 ACTs to health facilities in the 13 states in 2018 but, only 8,189,226 malaria cases (presumed and confirmed) were reported as treated with ACTs across the 13 states for the same year.
However, the numbers show an apparent discrepancy between the service and consumption, which is of serious concern to the Federal Ministry of Health and the donors, Global Fund.
Ngige said that the report shows that not all malaria commodities distributed to health facilities in the states could be accounted for especially that of ACT.
She added that it was discovered that some of these commodities found their way into private pharmaceutical companies and are also being hawked on the streets regardless of being labelled ‘not for sale’.
“We don’t know how these commodities that were officially delivered to the states are found on private vendors and Global Fund is aware of it; this puts Nigeria in a very bad light,’’
“Taxpayers in those countries contributed to help Nigeria “yet we are selling commodities that are for people who cannot afford ‘’ so that we can reduce out of pocket expenses towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC)” she added.
However, the public health director said that strict sanctions should be applied to all found culpable, stressing that accountability systems should be put in place to ensure that the most vulnerable population in states continue to benefit from the support of the Global Fund.