FG to Convene COVID-19 Summit, Plan to End Pandemic in 2022
The federal government is set to host a national summit aimed at ending the COVID pandemic in the country by December 2022.
This was disclosed by the national incident manager, presidential steering committee (PSC) on COVID-19, Dr. Mukhtar Mohammed at a Ministerial Press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday.
Themed: Pushing through the Last Mile to End the Pandemic and Build Back Better, the Summit which will hold from 6th to 8th December 2021 in Abuja is geared towards enabling all critical stakeholders in the health and socio-economic sectors of the country to come together and review the country’s response to the disruptive pandemic, with a view to repositioning the country to end it by 2022 and build back the health system and economy of the country.
Mohammed said the summit will provide a forum for the country to review its response to COVID-19 from the beginning of the pandemic.
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“This crucial summit will provide a forum for presentations and brainstorming on the following: to review the country’s COVID-19 response from February 2020 to November 2021; to identify successes, gaps, and lessons learnt; to identify resources and develop strategies that will actualise the country’s expressed international commitments towards ending COVID-19 by December 31, 2022,” he said.
“Others are to develop an accountability framework for COVID-19 response and health security in Nigeria, and to synthesise the blueprint for Nigeria’s pandemic recovery, reconstruction, health security, and sustainability.
“[The summit will] articulate actionable recommendations to President Muhammadu Buhari on the governance structure, resources, and policies needed to end COVID-19 in Nigeria by December 31, 2022, and build back the health system and the economy to better respond to future health-security threats.
“The summit will go a long way to demonstrating Nigeria’s readiness to action its international commitments, which will bolster the confidence and support of our international development partners in concerted efforts to ambitiously end the COVID-19 pandemic by December 31, 2022.
“Moreover, it will set the tone to strengthen our health system and bio-security architecture to be able to effectively respond to present and future global health security threats.”
The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, which was triggered when the index case was confirmed on the 27th of February 2020, precipitated significant disruptions to the healthcare system and socio-economic lives of Nigerians.
Nigeria now has 213,625 confirmed cases with 206,778 recoveries.
