Nigeria, four others rely on external health -WHO

World Health Organisation has revealed that Nigeria and four other countries rely heavily on external aids in matters concerning health expenditures. This is as the global health body added that over half of Nigeria’s spending on immunisation were funded by external donors.

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According to WHO’s 2021 report on global expenditure on health which covered the past two decades, said global spending on health doubled in real terms.
It said, “Global spending on health more than doubled in real terms over the past two decades, reaching $8.5trn in 2019 or 9.8 percent of global GDP but it was unequally distributed with high income countries accounting for approximately 80 percent.”

“Health spending in low-income countries was financed primarily by out-of-pocket spending. External aid rose considerably over the past two decades in countries that are highly dependent on external aids as the government’s share of spending on health for domestic public sources fell in line with increased aid.”
For countries highly dependent on external aid, the global body listed Nigeria.
It further explained, “The top five recipients of external health aid in 2019 were Nigeria, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique, three of which are middle income countries.”

“Nigeria was the largest recipient, with health aid totalling $1.1bn, or 6.5% of global external health aid.
“Unsurprisingly, low-income countries relied more heavily on external aid to fund spending on immunisation.
“Lower-middle income countries varied widely on how immunisation was funded. Nigeria and India were
outliers among countries with data: over half their spending on immunization was funded by private sources.”

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