The Federal Government through the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has announced that Nigeria will host a regional meeting on Lassa fever vaccine development.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, on Monday, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Pate, disclosed that Nigeria will be hosting a regional conversation on the Lassa fever vaccine development on Wednesday, January 15.

Pate noted that the government is working on a system that encourages cooperation through performance dialogues, scorecards, and accountability measures, as states and Local Governments are incentivized to improve their healthcare performance by comparing themselves to peers, to strengthen collaboration across all levels of government to improve healthcare outcomes.

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Pate said, “On Lassa fever, I’ll say that on the 15th of January this week, we’re hosting a regional conversation on the Lassa fever vaccine development. Nigeria is leading in the West African sub-region, a consortium of countries doing studies and with a view to introducing a Lassa fever vaccine over time to solve this (Lassa fever) issue.

“What we’re building is coherence, collaboration, and cooperation between different levels of government. And that is the way to improve population health outcomes in Nigeria. Then there are other determinants outside the health system.

“I’m very fortunate that my previous colleague, the Minister of State for Health (Dr Tunji Alausa), became the Minister of Education. Education has an important role in maternal mortality, in immunisation, because uneducated mothers have the bulk of zero-dose children and the children that are not immunised.