Health experts have urged the National Assembly to expedite the passage of the Bill establishing the National Institute of Pub...
The call was made at a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Infectious Diseases on the proposed legislation.
The Acting Head/Chief Executive Officer of NIPHID, Dr. Dalhatu Abdullahi Aminu, in a memorandum presented to the committee, said the proposed institute would transform the former National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Training Centre (NTBLTC), Zaria, into a specialist tertiary hospital and national centre for infectious diseases, public health training and research.
Aminu said the institute would provide advanced clinical care for complex infectious diseases, train specialist health workers, conduct cutting-edge research and support national efforts to prevent and respond to disease outbreaks.
He noted that the centre, established in 1929 and designated as the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Training Centre in 1991, had served Nigeria for nearly a century before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu approved its upgrade in November 2025 to expand its mandate to all infectious diseases of public health importance.
Dr. Aminu explained that he discovered that the stakeholders and Committee member had wrong ungazetted bill but his submission is based on the gazetted bill as published by the Journal of the National Assembly on 8/12/2025, No 77, Vol 22.
He went ahead to inform the committee that he had provided hard copy of the correct gazetted version to the secretariat to rectify the mistake.*
According to him, the bill will strengthen Nigeria's health security architecture and position the country to respond more effectively to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.
He also proposed nine amendments to the bill, including expanding the institute's mandate to cover all infectious diseases, establishing liaison offices in the six geopolitical zones, creating an Infectious Diseases Elimination and Control Department, and empowering the institute to establish schools and colleges for specialist health training.
Also speaking, Prof. Khadija Musa, Chairperson, Board of Trustees of the Public Health and Infectious Disease Management Practitioners Association of Nigeria, commended the National Assembly for initiating the bill.
She said the association fully supported the proposed legislation, stressing that it neither duplicated existing institutions nor conflicted with global best practices.
"From the international perspective, many countries have institutions performing complementary roles.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention works alongside the National Institutes of Health.
"In the United Kingdom, the UK Health Security Agency complements the National Institute for Health and Care Research, while in South Africa, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases works alongside the South African Medical Research Council.
"These are separate but complementary institutions, each with distinct mandates," she said.
Musa argued that Nigeria should adopt a similar institutional arrangement, noting that with a population of more than 230 million people, 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, a single institution could not effectively coordinate all public health responsibilities.
"The bill is in order. It does not duplicate efforts but rather complements the existing system and will improve standards and technical capacity in infectious disease management," she said.
She, however, proposed amendments to further strengthen the bill and ensure its smooth implementation.
Presenting a different position, Dr. Olajide Idris of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) expressed concerns that some of the proposed functions of NIPHID overlapped with the statutory responsibilities of the NCDC.
Idris said Nigeria already had a national institution responsible for communicable disease prevention, surveillance and response, warning that creating another institution with similar mandates could result in institutional and governance conflicts.
"The issue is whether the objectives of the bill can best be achieved by strengthening an existing institution or by creating a parallel institution with overlapping responsibilities," he said.
He said the NCDC supported the upgrade of the Zaria facility into a tertiary institution focusing on teaching, clinical services and research, but maintained that its functions should complement, rather than duplicate, those of the disease control agency.
"We support upgrading the Zaria health facility into a tertiary institution for teaching, clinical care and research to complement our work," Idris said.
Corroborating the NCDC view, the Health Sector Reform Coalition (HSRC) has urged the House of Representatives to reject the National Institute for Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Zaria (Establishment) Bill, 2025,
HRSC argued that it would duplicate the statutory functions of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and weaken the country's public health governance.
the coalition said while it supports efforts to strengthen Nigeria's capacity to prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks, creating a new national agency with overlapping responsibilities was unnecessary.
According to the coalition, the bill could create institutional rivalry, conflicting reporting lines and uncertainty over which agency would lead during public health emergencies, thereby undermining effective epidemic response.
It warned that overlapping mandates could result in duplicated data requests, inconsistent technical guidance and confusion among states, laboratories, healthcare providers and international development partners.
HSRC recommended that the National Assembly strengthen the existing NCDC through increased funding, legislative amendments and expansion of its regional presence rather than creating a parallel agency.
It added that if the objective was to boost infectious disease research and preparedness in Zaria and Northern Nigeria, the government could establish an NCDC-affiliated regional centre of excellence, reference laboratory or training hub in Zaria without creating a new national institution.
The public hearing featured submissions from stakeholders across the health sector as lawmakers considered the proposed legislation aimed at strengthening Nigeria's infectious disease prevention, research, training and response capacity.
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