WHO ready to rebuild North-East hospitals

The World Health Organisation has expressed its readiness to work with development partners to rebuild destroyed health facilities in the North-East.

The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, who spoke at a press conference in Maiduguri, Borno State, on Saturday, said it was time to scale up the intervention in the state and the rest of the North-East devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency.

She said the WHO, in collaboration with other international humanitarian agencies, had worked to combat the outbreak of diseases in the crisis region.

Moeti, who flagged off the integrated polio and malaria campaign, said the WHO had been supporting the treatment of malaria, which remains the major child killer disease, before the crisis in the North-East.

She said, “We have been supporting the development of malaria policies and plans in defining the intervention to be put in place, including providing technical advice at the federal and state levels.

“We have supported the overall health services in this emergency, to ensure that people have access to health care. We have mobilised 130 health teams to be deployed here to assist the state government to provide health services.”

She added that with the crisis nearing its end, there was an urgent need to change the narrative and ensure the rehabilitation of destroyed health facilities.

The WHO official said the organisation would lead in advocating for the rebuilding of destroyed health facilities, working in conjunction with some international partners.

Moeti added, “As the crisis is normalising, we expect development partners to take over and build on what has been achieved during emergency and as people go back home, to ensure that infrastructure destroyed are rebuilt, and with the state government ensuring that primary health care is re-established.”

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )