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The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) with the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN) and PharmAccess Foundation to strengthen disease surveillance through improved integration of data from private healthcare facilities into Nigeria’s national surveillance system.
The MoC establishes a framework for a pilot on automated private-sector Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) reporting into NCDC’s Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS). The pilot will test digital and interoperable approaches to improve the quality, completeness and timeliness of surveillance data while reducing the reporting burden on private healthcare facilities.
The agreement was signed in Abuja by Dr Jide Idris, Director-General of NCDC; Njide Ndili, Country Director of PharmAccess; and Dr Benson Ayodele Cole, First Vice President of HFN, who represented HFN.
Also present at the signing were key officials from NCDC, including Abiola Oshunniyi, Head, Project Implementation Unit; Yashe Usman; Farida Ciroma; Omotoso Adebayo, alongside other members of the Centre’s technical and programme teams.
Speaking at the signing, Dr Jide Idris, DG of NCDC, emphasised that effective disease surveillance and health security cannot be achieved without meaningful engagement with the private healthcare sector. He noted that a significant proportion of the data required to strengthen health security sits within private-sector facilities, from hospitals and laboratories to pharmacies, patent medicine vendors and other points of care.
“Disease surveillance and health security cannot be effectively achieved without the private sector. A significant proportion of the data needed to understand what is happening across our health system sits within private facilities. We therefore need to strengthen the way we engage the private sector and create systems that allow this data to contribute more effectively to national surveillance.”
Dr Idris also acknowledged HFN’s sustained efforts to deepen private-sector engagement with NCDC and described the collaboration as an important step towards strengthening the connection between private-sector healthcare delivery and national disease surveillance.
“HFN has been very persistent in driving this engagement, and we are pleased to formalise this collaboration. This is an important step towards building a surveillance system that reflects the reality of the entire health system.”
The collaboration builds on work already undertaken by HFN and PharmAccess to better understand the challenges and opportunities around private-sector IDSR reporting. The IDSR survey conducted by HFN in collaboration with PharmAccess provided an important foundation for understanding reporting experiences within private healthcare facilities and identifying opportunities to improve the way surveillance requirements are integrated into provider workflows.
Representing HFN at the signing, Dr Benson Ayodele Cole, First Vice President of HFN, described the MoC as a progression of this work and a further step towards strengthening the role of the private sector in Nigeria’s health security architecture.
“This journey started with the IDSR survey that HFN undertook with PharmAccess, which gave us an opportunity to listen to private-sector providers and understand some of the challenges they face with surveillance reporting. Today’s signing is an important progression from that work. We are moving from understanding the problem to working together with NCDC and PharmAccess to develop practical solutions that fit into the way providers actually work.”
Under the agreement, HFN will support engagement with private-sector healthcare providers and relevant technology partners, work with NCDC on the selection and participation of pilot facilities, co-lead the design and implementation of the pilot, and support documentation of private-sector perspectives and lessons learned.
For PharmAccess, the collaboration builds on its experience in health-system strengthening, digital innovation and public-private collaboration. Speaking at the signing, Njide Ndili, Country Director of PharmAccess, referenced lessons from Kenya around IDSR and disease surveillance, highlighting the value of designing surveillance systems around the realities of healthcare delivery.
“Our experience in Kenya has shown us the importance of designing disease surveillance systems around the realities of healthcare delivery and making it as easy as possible for providers to contribute quality data. We see an opportunity to bring those lessons into this collaboration in Nigeria, while working with NCDC and HFN to develop an approach that is relevant to our own health system.”
PharmAccess will provide technical assistance to support the pilot’s design and implementation, including expertise in interoperability, digital standards and system architecture, as well as support for knowledge transfer and documentation of lessons from the pilot.
The collaboration will operate within applicable data protection laws and health information governance requirements, with data-sharing arrangements prioritising data security, confidentiality, non-disclosure and appropriate use. The pilot is intended to support system learning and improvement and does not alter existing statutory reporting obligations.
The signing represents a further step towards deeper collaboration between Nigeria’s public health surveillance system and the private healthcare sector, recognising that effective health security requires the participation of all parts of the health system and access to the data generated across them.
