Strengthening Nigeria’s Health Security | A Conversation with Dr. Jide Idris, DG, NCDC

What does it take to protect a nation from the next outbreak?
We sat down with Dr. Jide Idris, Director General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), live at WHX Lagos 2026.
From lessons learned during Ebola and COVID-19 to building stronger systems for prevention, detection, and response, this conversation explores how Nigeria is strengthening its health security and preparing for the future.
This is a story of structure, leadership, and progress and a reminder that stronger health systems can save lives.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello, healthcare enthusiasts, and welcome back to the Cure. We are live at WHX Lagos 2026. We have with us a very esteemed guest, Dr. Jide Idris, the Director General of the Nigerian Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thank you so much, Dr. Idris, for taking the time to speak with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Welcome. Thank you for harassing me.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

That's an inside joke. My first question to you: you took over the NCDC in February 2024. You've been in the role for two years, and you know, right now we have Active Ebola pandemic threats. We have the memory of the COVID-19 pandemic still very much alive. I would love to understand from you what does that look like in reality in terms of your mandate and how you you run the NCDC and the importance of governance in your role in the NCDC.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Um let me say that my mandate is health security. And that basically means that uh you have the job of securing the health of the people of Nigeria.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Protecting them from communicable diseases. And it's a tough job because uh people do not realize the scope of it. And again, what brought about that has to do with our experience as a nation. When you had the Ebola outbreak in 2014, and I had a COVID outbreak.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Those two outbreaks uh brought the fore the fact that there are so many things to address in this country. Our system is still fragile because we really do not really understand the kind of vulnerabilities we have. And um any one epidemic can wipe out so many people, yeah. Uh much more than what whether you have road traffic accidents or what I did across this country in one year, not by one epidemic. And that's what's it's an emergency situation, and in delivery and emergency emergencies, you need proper governance, yeah. The first thing they taught you, or they taught when you had this Ebola thing is incident command system, incident management system. Basically, just like governance, if we have no structure, if we have no proper governance system in place, the system becomes chaotic. Yeah, and like I did say governance covers so many things, leadership and governor, it's it covers policies. So if we lead policies to NCDC, I've told you what we are supposed to do as NCDC, yeah, national security. It takes legislation because no, let's say roles and responsibilities. If you have many people involved in health security, many people involved in NCDC, but each one of them must have their clear roles and responsibilities. Yeah, if not, it's gonna be a clash, there's gonna be chaos. Everybody does what it what it likes. So that rules and responsibility must bring their clock. Who does what? When and how yeah, this must be clear. You must have legislation because without legislation, we can't do much. Legislation converse legitimacy to NCDC, it confires legitimacy to any government whose responsibility is and it also ensures continuity so that if you have the proper legislation, the legislature prescribes what to do as an institution, how it is done, what kind of staff we can recruit, how is money up money appropriate to what to use. Yeah, if that is not there, it can't do much. That's what so about legislation. Legislation presents uh establish continuity. So if you have a different government and that law is still there, yeah, it's very difficult for the new government to change whatever unless you also go back to the legislature and changes the law. Yeah, and changing the law again takes quite a long time. Then you have regulations, there are many activities, different people working. All these things have to be regulated to maintain a clear seamlessly. Yeah, or else again, this one does it, that one is on his own number, it's regulated. What happened there now? Telemedicine. Everyone comes in there, once we do telemedicine, put up this one, doctor comes, you don't know who what kind of doctor he is, you don't know what his capabilities are. Yeah, you don't know how good he is, uh, you don't know whether he has a certificate. So if such things are not regulated, the the chances are that your output, you may not actually achieve your output outcome. Yeah, that's okay. Then again, accountability as a government, you are using government funding, you're using other people's funding. These people work for their money or they have a way of raising their money. But again, they give you this money to do what you want to do. You must be able to account for the money. Yeah, at the end of the day, what do you do with the money? How do you do spending money? Yeah, if you cannot account for it, the chance that you'll never get that kind of support again later. Yeah, so all this food you want to go back to NCDs. NCDs was created both based on the experiences of Ebola and Kugos. And that's why again they started putting structures in place. I was lucky to have predecessors who started building on this, so this is what I'm inherited. So, in managing all those things, again, you have to look at what happened before in the past. Yeah, what is happening now is the processes are the processes you use before, are they still relevant now? These are the issues here. And the guy CDC is supposed to be National Public Health Institute.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

And all our work is research-based. So we continually do research on diseases you come across, all the things you have because of disease. As the findings come again, you feel that you need to improve. Take, for instance, the colon de Ebola. The Ebola is used to a desire type strains. Took a while before they developed vaccines and therapeutics for it. This one now, no vaccines, no therapeutics.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

So some researchers are working already on how to do this.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

So right now, you can't treat it. Just like we put in treatbola then on the vaccines came. Now we can't treat it.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

So what do you do? You rely on that basic public health infrastructure that has been built over the time. The other is prevention. What we are doing now is how do you prevent this thing from coming to this country? Because it's not here yet. But should you not be able to 100% prevent it? When it comes in, most of the position is able to quickly detect it and isolate those patients.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Because if you don't, it's going to spread. So if you isolate them, you now look at now put in isolation. How do you treat them? And of course, now who and who have they been in contact with because it spreads.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So you have to do contact research. And then as you isolate, are you sure it's a bullet they have? That you have to do that test, diagnostic test using our laboratories. This laboratories now they evolve constantly. So the highest level using the genomic sequencing thing, which is the highest level.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

And the plan is to build that genomic capabilities. Because then it is faster. You don't have to go through the regiments of using microscope and do all this used to do before. But again, it requires other things.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

It requires bioinformaticians, which we don't have here. You need to train them. It requires training. It also requires stockpiling. Prepare, you don't wait until that thing comes. You have to prepare.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

In this country, people don't understand why they should spend money to prepare for what you don't even know is going to come. But when it comes, everybody starts running health skills. So if you don't have that system in place again, it's also chaos.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

So these are the things again, that's why governance is very key. The rudiments of government is very key. And of course, we are getting money. If you use the money somebody gave you free of charge diligently, accountably, they start to give you more. But if you don't, you can get the money again. And does our government have enough money to give us? The answer is no. Because no government will have all the money require. So we need again. So that's what the partnerships building. So when I got to NCDC, prevention was the weakest link. So we have to develop a department for prevention, disease prevention. If you can prevent diseases coming in, you're almost woman drive.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

They have surveillance or early warning systems. It's more like data tracking. You track data, you track occurrence of disease in many ways. You can use hospital data, you can get information from the community. Can we get information from mining information from newspapers, the website, and everything like that? But the point is that if you analyze those things and you see a particular thread is a trigger, you can now send people to investigate. Communications let the people know what you are doing, why they should do certain things, what they should do. And in doing that, it's not easy. Communication is not easy. You have to build the trust of the people, or else you'll just be wasting your time. You tell them to sit down, it's okay. We said they sit down. When you go, they will stand up. So these are the issues here. It's all governance related.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

It's all again is that you build from past experiences, knowledge base, and start to address what you have.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah. And speaking of past experiences, obviously, we're here in Lagos.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

You were the commissioner for health for Lagos for almost two decades.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

And over 10 years ago, you were at the forefront of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Lagos. And I think that's a case study for outbreak response. I would love to hear how your experience as the Lagos Commission, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, has informed your new role as the Director General of the NCDC. What have you taken from Lagos that you're now applying at a more federal level? What are some lessons learned?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Let me say that you see I always be like knowledge, any form of knowledge is never lost. You never know where you have to use it.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

And let me say in Lagos, when Ebola struck, we had no clue what Ebola was. We just saw people running, people dying. But we were lucky instead that we had some experts who came from outside.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

USCDC, the BTOHO, and all this stuff. They gave me the knowledge of what Ebola is. It taught us how to handle that.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

And that's like if you relate that to what we were taught in school, infectious disease, barrier notes, hand washing.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

All this they may they may seem little or small. But the problem is not because when you say IPC, infection, prevention, and control. If you do that properly, if you have a culture in this country, it can address so many diseases, including Ebola.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Take Ebola and how does it spread? Contact with body fluids, it could be saliva, it could be blood, it could be sweat, anything. But if you can break that contact between the people, yeah, you're almost human, right? Because that virus cannot spread. But how do you break that contact? Protect yourself, you protect the people with you. Yeah, how do you protect gloves, wash hands regularly? You know, health workers must go on there and protect themselves again, and be on the alert that the person with a fever may not necessarily be malaria.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

So you have to understand again how Ebola presents. Once you see that again, it's a trigger. You check, it detects.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Laboratory. You have to go to laboratory that have the capability to detect because Ebola is what they call organism of high consequence pathogen. It's not any lab that can detect Ebola. It has to be big there, three labs.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

They require special expertise, they require special equipment, they require special processes, policies. I see people have to be trained on how to use that.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

That's how we can develop as a country. That's the case we're trying to build such capacities in NCDC. And case management, how do you manage these cases? You have to look for people who have the knowledge. That's why, again, I've had this expense of I started work as a clinician, as a doctor. Okay, it's a totally different perspective. You moved into management. How do you combine people working together, different breaks, but is how do you pull on that together to achieve what we get? Now move to NCDC. That's the science needs. You find that most of the people we are working with are not doctors.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Most of them are not doctors. Most are not nurses. They are scientists. Microbiologists, laboratory technologists, communications experts. These are people we never actually thought we want to work with. But again, without them, the doctor can't do much. So you need to understand now, let your gas down, be more open, yeah, get in people again, and you learn every day. So if you put that together, you are a better person for it. Because you've not limited yourself to one particular area of expertise.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah. Stop that. My final question for you. Okay. As we think about the Ebola outbreak that's happening in DRC and as well as in Uganda, can you tell us what is the NCDC doing to prepare? You've already mentioned stockpiling and making sure we actually have the resources we need before anything happens. But what else can you tell us that the NCDC does?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

One thing is that look at what is happening in DRC in Uganda. We've told you a lot of people are dying. No vaccines, no drugs. Even when a lot of the cases have not been are not been detected because they are ruled out there's like community spread.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

But this is spreading fast. It can come into this country anytime. Number of fresh in. We have a huge urban population here.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

We have porous borders in this country.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

So the first thing you want to do is don't even allow him to come in at all. So what we're looking at again, first the points of entry.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Airports. You have to build capacity at the airports. It is tough in a country where law and order is key. Everybody is running up and down. You have to create order. It's not related to governance. And airports again, it's not only health workers working there. You have oversion officials, fan, NCWA, immigration. All of them have to work together to create that order. What would you supply them? And that's why what they are doing now is that electronically, people have to put that declaration from before they bought any flights anywhere coming here. And when they fill that declaration from electronically, it is transmitted here. So you know who might be suspects, whether they have fever. If they are coming from that area, they filled that case definition.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Somebody with fever, body aches, and all maybe bleeding. But the history of travel from that place. Yeah, the person becomes a sustainable. Doesn't necessarily have to ebola.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

But you bring the person aside. Now you test. But when you test, you isolate so that you don't know whether the person is consuming or not.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

You test or isolate. Now you test. If you are not sure, you follow up for the fair next 21 days because incubation period for Ebola is 2 to 21 days. Monitor temperature, monitor whatever size of that so that you don't see anything, anything changes. Once you notice any changes, yeah, you do that. While they're doing that again, if you suspect, make a diagnosis, take a blood sample. Taking blood sample is not just any blood sample, you have to be careful, you have to be properly kitted. Yeah, so that if you are not infected. So the idea is to prevent the virus from coming to this country. But why it cannot fully prevent because you can't prevent 100%.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

As a building our support infrastructure in-house, yeah. At the back end when I say support laboratory systems, case management, communications, yeah, um, surveillance. How do you now track this from different parts of the country? Yeah. So you build capacity. And unfortunately, now we have a huge population, we have many states. So it's only NCDs in the NCD supports now to give support to the states.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Each state again must be able to put up some real structure, emergency response system, just like we do at the NCDs.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

They should be able to do subnationally. Our role now is to build that capacity at the sub-national level. So that because this disease occurs in the communities anyway, before we know it's already in the community.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

So we have to find a way of detecting this from the community, and they can tell us, relate to us, okay, this is what is happening. Then send people there to go and check and that kind of thing. So which laboratories do you want to use? Multiple laboratories. It's not also the other laboratories. So they are more like tiered. The tier one, tier two, the three.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

So we decide again who to whom. If you to collect samples in one remote area, you have to find out collecting the sample and transport the sample in a safe way. And that's why you have systems leave a sample collection. That is where you say system again for distributing this thing. So develop rapid responses to states where you think you need them.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Like say stockpile. You don't wait until this thing happens. If you know this is lesser fever or this is a bull up, right? You start thinking, what are what you need to react to this?

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

So start purchasing those and keeping them.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Once you start noticing again cases, cases against you send them out to help me so that so it's a complex thing.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

But it's interesting. It brings people different experiences of people together.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

To be able to address this issue.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Am I free now?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yes. Thank you, Dr. Idris, so much for taking the time to speak. All right. See you in the next episode. Bye.