The figure represents the annual average of the estimated N522 billion required to implement the country’s five-year health security plan covering 2025 to 2029.
The Director-General of NCDC, Dr Jide Idris, disclosed this in on Monday, in a statement explaining the Federal Government’s N10 billion emergency intervention funding to the agency, amid questions over the allocation during Nigeria’s Ebola response.
Idris said the N10 billion represented approximately two per cent of the average annual cost of implementing NAPHS 2.0, stressing that the allocation was inadequate to meet the country’s broader health security needs.
He explained that although not all activities under the national action plan would be funded through NCDC, the estimated cost illustrated the scale of investment required to protect Nigerians against public health threats.
According to him, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board estimates that countries require between $1 and $2 per person annually to achieve an acceptable level of epidemic preparedness.
Applying this benchmark to Nigeria’s population of approximately 240 million, he said the country would require between $240 million and $480 million annually.
He said sustained investment from the federal government, state governments and development partners would be necessary to bridge the funding gap.
The NCDC boss noted that inadequate funding had remained a major constraint to the implementation of Nigeria’s first National Action Plan for Health Security, necessitating additional domestic and external funding under the new plan.
He said NAPHS 2.0 was designed as a multisectoral, One Health and whole-of-government initiative involving relevant ministries, departments and agencies, development partners, civil society organisations and other stakeholders.
The plan is expected to strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats.
Idris said the N10 billion emergency intervention fund approved by President Bola Tinubu in June 2026 was intended to strengthen preparedness against multiple epidemic-prone diseases, including Ebola, Lassa fever, cholera, meningitis, diphtheria, measles and monkeypox.
He added that the funding was released directly to NCDC and was not allocated to the Presidential Task Force on Ebola.
The director-general called for greater attention to sustainable and accountable financing of health security, warning that inadequate investment in preparedness could expose the country to greater human, social and economic losses when outbreaks occur.
