The World Health Organization in its determination to ensure health for all has in collaboration with the Federal Government launched the Nigerian Essential Diagnostic List, NEDL to provide evidence-based guidance to countries to create their own national lists of essential diagnostic tests and tools in order to complement the List of Essential Medicines and enhance its impact.
Unveiling the EDL in Abuja, the WHO Country Representative, Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo represented by the WHO Public Health Emergency Advisor, Dr. Alexander Chimbaru noted that development is prior to the critical need for diagnostic testing in healthcare to achieve Universal Health Coverage while addressing issues of lack of access to testing services in countries.
“The WHO Essential Diagnostic List which was first published in 2018, is a list of recommended in-vitro diagnostics that should be available at the point of care and is intended as a guidance document for countries to create their own national list based on their local context and needs.
“The overall goal of the EDL is to improve access to testing, diagnostic capacities during the outbreak, affordability of test, regulation, and quality of the diagnostic test. The National Essential Diagnostic List is anticipated to complement and enhance the impact of the Essential Medicines List (EML) which has recorded great
improvement in the availability and affordability of medicines and quality of patient management.
“I, therefore, congratulate the Honorable Minister of Health on this important achievement as Nigeria joined the list of the first countries including India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, that have adopted the WHO concept of Essential Diagnostic List and have produced one that is aligned to the disease prevalence in their country.
“I encourage all the States and health facilities to use the National Essential Diagnostic List as this will not only improve the health system capacity to reach accurate diagnosis but will save heath resources wasted on inappropriate treatment and a long stay in the hospital”.
On his part, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire represented by the Head of Dentistry Division of the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. B.O Alonge, said the event marked another giant stride towards achieving and implementing policies that strengthen the national health system for effective, and affordable delivery of health services in the country.
“This 1st Edition of the National Essential Diagnostics List (NEDL) is a guidance document needed to prioritize critical health in-vitro diagnostics (IVDs) based on wide availability and affordability through the national health system. It will support the selection, procurement, supply, donations, or provision of IVDs.
“After about 4 decades following the development of the Essential Medicines List (EML), the World Health Organization developed the Essential Diagnostics List (EDL) in order to provide evidence-based guidance to countries to create their national lists of essential diagnostic tests and tools, anticipating that the EDL will complement the List of Essential Medicines and enhance its impact.
“Similarly, the EDL is anticipated to improve patient care, in-country diagnostic capacity, affordability of tests, regulation, and quality of diagnostic tests, and capabilities of national laboratories.
“The WHO EDL is purposed to provide evidence-based guidance to countries to create their national lists of essential diagnostic tests and tools, anticipating that the EDL will complement the List of Essential Medicines and enhance its impact.
“National essential medicines lists have been successful in facilitating access to treatment and promoting affordable prices, particularly in low resource countries, by prioritizing the most important medicines all countries need to make available to their populations.”
Ehanire also stresses that policies and guidelines have been developed to ensure nationwide implementation of the document, particularly at an Emergency meeting of the National Council on Health.
Adding that the Nigerian Laboratory sub-sector has benefited from the in-country capacity for molecular testing leveraging on COVID-19 response and interventions, optimization of Gene Xpert platforms for molecular testing, and improved finance for health.
“As a government, we will continue to provide enabling environment to ensure successful implementation of the policies and guidance documents.
“We also encourage counterparts from the sub-National levels (State and local governments) and even the private sector to key in and leverage the National Essential Diagnostics List as it holds great benefits as earlier highlighted.
“I must acknowledge the commitment and input from numerous Partners especially WHO and the Global Fund towards the development of this document and also thank the leadership of the National Laboratory Technical Working Group for providing guidance.
“It is my sincere hope that the implementation of the EDL will contribute to achieving the goal of the government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, to make quality healthcare accessible to Nigerians”.
