The United States government and the federal republic of Nigeria on Monday jointly commissioned a $5.1 million medical storage facility in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
Stephen Haykin, mission director for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), joined Isaac Adewole, the Nigerian minister of health, to perform the commissioning.
The new state-of-the-art medical storage facility is expected to provide better access for the nation’s medical authorities to life saving medicines and other essential healthcare commodities.
“With this new facility, the ministry of health will now be able to provide safe storage for more medicines required to meet Nigeria’s annual needs for public health commodities for the foreseeable future,” Haykin said at the launch.
“We are proud to have been a partner in the ‘warehouse in a box’ effort,” he further stressed.
Known as “warehouse in a box,” the $5.1 million Abuja Premier Medical Warehouse facility was constructed in partnership with the Nigerian ministry of health and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international health financing organization.
The 3,500 square meter kitted structure was shipped to Nigeria for onsite assembly, and features smooth dust-free floor surfaces, temperature regulating systems, security systems, thermal insulated ceilings, and warehouse handling equipment.
US assistance to Nigeria in the area of medical storage began in 2014, followed by the construction of the first “warehouse in a box” facility near Lagos in 2015.
The new Abuja facility provides the necessary storage space for public health commodities at the central level, enabling the ministry of health to ensure the provision of quality life-saving health commodities for Nigerians through a central facility.
With the Ministry of Health’s approval, the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), through USAID and the Global Fund, provided support for the construction of the warehouses in Abuja and Lagos.
