The $200 million loan request by President Muhammadu Buhari from the World Bank is a counterpart fund to fight malaria, Nigeria’s Hhealth Minister has said.
Osagie Ehanire said the money was a component of the World Bank-assisted Multilateral Borrowing Plan, and it involved the African Development Bank and the Islamic Bank.
“The project development was done by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Budget. The purpose is for Nigeria counterpart fund to complement a global malaria action plan. The main donors to this ‘Roll Back Malaria’ are three. The first is the U S. Presidential Malaria Initiative which donated $295 million, and they are going to use that to cover 11 states.”
Mr Ehanire disclosed this at the Bi-Weekly National Briefing on COVID-19, Cholera, Health Promotion and other related issues on Monday in Abuja.
“The global funds to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria provides about $400 for very high malaria burden in 13 states in the country to continue to roll back malaria. These are states which have no financial support for this programme,” the minister further stated.
“In order to have full coverage for our partners to release their funds, they need these 13 states to be covered on the condition that Nigeria will provide 200 million dollars for the 13 states for five years, and this covers 208 LGAs, 3,536 PHCs and about million of the population.”