Conference Abstract | Volume 8, Abstract ELIC2025210 (Oral 139) | Published: 18 Aug 2025
Chinekwu Nwabuogochukwu Oreh1&, Abdulrazak Olalekan Are1, Marvellous Ebunoluwa Olatunji1, Ahmad Abdulwahab1
Health Department, Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat, Abuja, Nigeria
&Corresponding author: Chinekwu Oreh, PhD, Health Department, Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat, Abuja, Nigeria. Email: coreh@ngf.org.ng
Received: 29 May 2025, Accepted: 09 Jul 2025, Published: 18 Aug 2025
Domain: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Keywords: Lassa fever, political commitment, sustainable financing, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, sustainable financing
©Chinekwu Nwabuogochukwu Oreh et al. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Chinekwu Nwabuogochukwu Oreh et al., Scaling political commitment and sustainable financing for Lassa fever in West Africa: Lessons from the Nigeria Governors’ forum. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2025;8(ConfProc):00139. https://doi.org/10.37432/jieph-confpro5-00139
Lassa fever remains a persistent public health threat in West Africa, with Nigeria recording the highest burden and contributing to regional transmission. Addressing these outbreaks require political will and sustainable financing. In 2021, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), a platform for the country’s 36 state governors, adopted Health Security as a priority. This study shows how NGF’s accountability framework has been used to mobilise state level action and financing for Health Security which includes Lassa fever and how the approach can be adapted in the region.
The NGF Secretariat in partnership with Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and partners, developed a Health Security Scorecard to track state level commitments using indicators measuring functionality of Public Health Laboratories (PHLs), availability of intra state sample referral systems, funding for Emergency Preparedness and Response, and Public Health Emergency Operations Centres (PHEOCs). This was complemented with monthly updates to governors and tailored advocacy targeting high burden states.
The Scorecard increased visibility of Lassa fever at the highest political level in states. This visibility alongside peer pressure amongst governors enhanced political ownership, led to greater accountability. and contributed to increased resource mobilisation and prioritisation. As a result, between 2022 and 2024, the number of states with functional PHLs increased from 15 to 19, intra state sample referral systems from 16 to 23, funded epidemiology units and PHEOCs from 22 to 30. These improvements were accompanied by notable reductions in Lassa fever incidence between 2023 and 2025 in epicentre states: Ondo (1,685 to 190), Edo (1,375 to 105), Taraba (422 to 103), Bauchi (636 to 161), and Ebonyi (260 to 17).
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