Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) is seeking partnership with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) to foster health promotion and literacy among Nigerians.

The ministry’s Director, Health Promotion Division, Mrs Ladidi Bako-Aiyegbusi said this during an advocacy

visit to NAN in Abuja on Friday.

According to her, low health literacy is one of the factors responsible for the spread of diseases in the country.

She said that the nation was presently experiencing low health indices, a situation the government was

not happy about, adding that to reduce health issues, priority must be given to adequate and effective health

information promotion.

The director said “a lot of people do not know simple things that they need to do to stay healthy, or that

some simple habits and practices that they are doing are affecting them and others in the community in general.

“So, to ensure that people are appropriately informed on what to do, the Federal Government shifted its approach of getting health information to people from health education to health promotion as far

back as 2006.

Bako-Aiyegbusi said that the policy was inaugurated in 2006 and in 2017, it was evaluated to see how far it had

achieved its aim of informing Nigerians on the right things to do to maintain good health.

She added that in the process of revising the policy, it was realised that there were basic structures needed to

interface with to effectively improve health literacy.

“And to ensure that we are guided in what we do, the three tiers of government, stakeholders, civil society

organisations and implementing partners, including religious circles, communities, health providers and

beneficiaries came together to ensure structures that can support effective health literacy.

“We came up with a five-year National Strategic Plan for Health Promotion and while we were developing this

plan, we realised that the media is critical and that we cannot get the information on positive behavioural

change to the people without the media and that was how this strategy came about.’’

The plan, she said, is expected to foster collaboration between the ministry and the media to ensure that health information was given priority and reached the people in a timely and concise manner and

feedback received from the people.

The director also said that “though it is the first time of such partnership with the media, the ministry is looking forward to a robust synergy that will make the impact of the health interventions embarked upon by government to be felt’’.

Responding, the Editor-In-Chief of NAN, Mr Silas Nwoha commended the ministry for coming up with such an initiative to promote health literacy among the populace.

He said NAN is a strategic media agency that can give the ministry all the publicity it needs.

Nwoha added that the agency is ready to partner with any organisation that is prepared to leverage on its wide reach and coverage to showcase them to the world.

He said: “I pledge our total and massive support to make sure that we take you to the promised land, NAN never fails.

“Once we are given a task, we normally make sure we get to the end of it.’’

Source: News Agency of Nigeria