The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), Dr Jide Idris, has clarified that the ₦10 billion approved by President Bola Tinubu for Ebola preparedness will also be used to strengthen Nigeria’s response to other infectious diseases, including Lassa fever.
Idris made the clarification during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, October 26, 2026, amid questions about the purpose and utilisation of the emergency intervention fund.
According to the NCDC chief, the funding was not requested exclusively for Ebola but was designed to strengthen the country’s capacity to prevent, detect and respond to multiple public health threats.
“The money was requested not only for Ebola, but to address issues of control of other endemic diseases,” Idris said, explaining that Nigeria was approaching the period when Lassa fever cases typically increase.
He noted that Ebola and other infectious diseases require some of the same public health interventions, including surveillance, laboratory diagnosis, screening, contact tracing and monitoring at points of entry.
The fund is therefore expected to support a broader disease-control strategy rather than being restricted to a single outbreak.
President Tinubu approved the ₦10 billion intervention on June 9, 2026, and established a Presidential Task Force on Ebola Virus Disease Preparedness and Emerging Public Health Threats. The approval came months before Nigeria confirmed an imported case of Ebola on October 20.
The State House said the funding was intended to strengthen the operational preparedness of the NCDC and support critical national public health emergency response activities.
Idris outlined several areas where the money would be required, including the procurement of personal protective equipment, laboratory reagents and other consumables, the deployment of surveillance and contact-tracing teams, transportation, fuel and other operational expenses.
He also said the intervention would support the rehabilitation of treatment and isolation centres that require repairs, including facilities in Abuja, to ensure they are ready to respond to potential outbreaks.
The NCDC director-general explained that Nigeria’s disease-control systems must remain prepared for multiple threats because measures used to contain one infectious disease can also strengthen the country’s response to others.
His clarification comes as the handling of the ₦10 billion fund has become a subject of public and political debate.
The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council previously claimed that the approved funds remained untouched because the NCDC, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and other relevant agencies had been relying on existing resources to carry out preparedness activities. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar subsequently called for greater transparency regarding the fund’s status and utilisation.
However, the reports reviewed did not establish the exact amount released, disbursed or spent from the ₦10 billion allocation. A detailed public account of the fund’s implementation would help clarify how the money is being deployed across the different disease-control priorities.
On the Ebola situation, Idris said Nigeria had no active positive case following the medical evacuation of the index patient to Switzerland, but cautioned that the country could not yet be considered free of the disease while contacts continued to be monitored.
The NCDC has maintained that contact tracing, surveillance, laboratory capacity and infection-prevention measures remain central to preventing further transmission.
The clarification means the ₦10 billion intervention should be understood as funding for broader public health preparedness, including Ebola, Lassa fever and other infectious disease threats, rather than as an allocation exclusively for Ebola treatment.
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