TheCable

Borno is better prepared for health emergencies than over 50 percent of Nigerian states — according to SBM Intelligence, Nigeria’s geopolitical intelligence platform.

The SBM, in the second edition of its Health Preparedness Index (HPI), ranked Borno as the 17th most prepared state.

The HPI is a ranking of Nigeria’s 36 states showing how equipped each of the states is for a major disease outbreak.

The report uses six indicators — doctor-to-population ratio; infant mortality; human development index; proportion of state’s budget spent on healthcare; state’s budget per capita, and average household size.

The north-eastern state which has been the epicentre of over a decade insurgency, beat 19 other states including Osun, Imo, Benue and Kaduna.

Overall, Borno is the third most prepared state in northern Nigeria, coming after Kwara and Kogi.

In November 2020, the Borno state government began the construction of Borno State University Teaching Hospital and College of Medical Sciences.

Babagana Zulum, the state governor, said the development was to enable the Borno State University to start awarding degrees in medical programmes.

The state recently uncovered 21 health workers with fake academic certificates operating in the state.

The report ranked Lagos, Ondo, Cross River as the three top prepared states in Nigeria while Zamfara, Jigawa, Kebbi are the least.

Lagos toppled Cross River to rank first while Niger which was ranked last in the maiden report overthrew six states to take the 30th position.

“This year’s Health Preparedness Index was put together against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. All 36 states had to revise their budgets due to the impact of the pandemic on state revenues,” the report said.

“Health budgets were not affected by these cuts, for the most part, so the share of healthcare spending as a percentage of the overall budget grew.

“Put together, the 36 states spent an average of 8.26% of their budgets on healthcare in 2019, compared with over 11% in 2020. In fact, only 11 states allocated above 10% on healthcare in 2019. In 2020, that number rose to 20.”