NCDC says ₦10bn Ebola fund covers Lassa, cholera and other outbreaks too
- The NCDC says the ₦10 billion approved by President Tinubu is for many epidemic threats, not Ebola alone.
- Director-General Dr Jide Idris says the agency needs about ₦104.4 billion a year for its health security plan.
- Nigeria has no active Ebola case, but contacts are being watched for 21 days, the agency said.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has said the ₦10 billion emergency fund approved by President Bola Tinubu is not for Ebola alone, but for a wider list of disease threats facing the country.
The agency's Director-General, Dr Jide Idris, made the clarification in a statement on Monday, after public debate over the money. The fund was approved in June 2026, when an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo became a global emergency, the NCDC said.
According to Idris, the money is meant to strengthen prevention, early detection and rapid response to Ebola, Lassa fever, cholera, cerebrospinal meningitis, diphtheria, measles, mpox and antimicrobial resistance. He said the request for the fund came before Nigeria confirmed its own imported Ebola case.
He also said the ₦10 billion went directly to the NCDC, not to the Presidential Task Force on Ebola, which is chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President and was set up mainly to coordinate the national response.
Why the agency says ₦10bn is not enough
Idris said the money falls far short of what Nigeria needs. The country's second National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS 2.0), which runs from 2025 to 2029, is estimated to cost about ₦522 billion over five years, or an average of ₦104.4 billion a year. The ₦10 billion is about two per cent of that yearly figure.
He cited the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, which estimates that countries need $1 to $2 per person each year for acceptable epidemic preparedness. For Nigeria's population of about 240 million, that comes to between $240 million and $480 million a year.
"The ₦10 billion allocation remains inadequate to meet Nigeria's broader health security needs," Idris said.
He traced the agency's funding history: ₦4 billion in 2024, ₦7 billion in 2025 plus a ₦5 billion intervention fund that year, and ₦22 billion in the 2026 Appropriation, before the extra ₦10 billion in June.
No active Ebola case, but contacts still watched
On the outbreak itself, Idris said Nigeria has no active Ebola case. The imported Bundibugyo Ebola case was confirmed in the agency's laboratory on October 20, within 24 hours of an alert in Abuja.
All identified contacts are being monitored daily, and surveillance will continue until the last one completes the 21-day observation period without a new case. "We are not yet out of the woods," he said.
He said the situation does not justify postponing elections, banning campaigns or mass gatherings, or restricting travel, and that the NCDC has recommended none of these. Instead, the agency has issued guidelines for organisers of large events.
Idris urged Nigerians to check information through official NCDC channels before sharing it, warning that rumours and the politicisation of public health emergencies could weaken the response. He promised transparency in how the fund is used.
What happens next: Contact monitoring continues until the 21-day window closes with no new case. The NCDC says it will keep publishing updates, and it wants federal and state governments and development partners to commit to steadier funding.