The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, says Nigeria must prepare for high-consequence pathogens, especially “Pathogen X,” which remains a global health concern.
Abayomi made the call on Friday at the close of a five-day State Action Plan for Health Security (SAPHS) development workshop in Lagos.
Pathogen X is the name used by scientists and the World Health Organization (WHO) to describe an unknown pathogen that could emerge in the future and cause a serious international epidemic or pandemic.
In February 2018, Pathogen X was added to the WHO’s Blueprint list of priority diseases for which global research and development investment is urgently required.
Abayomi noted that Pathogen X remains a major concern, warning that many emerging pathogens have no treatment or vaccine in their early stages.
He said the world still struggles to differentiate between natural outbreaks and potential biological weapon threats, stressing the need for Lagos to strengthen its containment laboratories and emergency response systems.
According to him, Lagos must maintain a permanent state of readiness for emerging biological threats, adding that the state has learned difficult but vital lessons from the Ebola outbreak, COVID-19 and the recent cholera incident.
The commissioner emphasised that Lagos’ experience shows that strong biosecurity cannot exist without a resilient health system capable of responding swiftly and effectively to threats.
Abayomi said the state must continue to invest in surveillance, oxygen capacity, public health infrastructure and workforce retention, noting that “readiness is expensive but unavoidable.”
“You cannot train your army during war; you train during peace,” he said.
He assured participants that the state would continue building a unified health security shield for its residents.
Speaking earlier, Dr Olubunmi Olofa, Deputy Director at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), said the agency was pleased with Lagos’ commitment to translating its Joint External Evaluation (JEE) findings into a concrete five-year SAPHS.
Olofa recalled that Lagos scored 36 during the 2024 JEE assessment, describing the score not as a failure but as an accurate reflection of the state’s capacity at the time.
He stressed the importance of allocating a specific budget for implementing the action plan and expressed confidence that Lagos would achieve significant improvements within the next two to three years, when the next evaluation is due.
Also speaking, the Director of Epidemiology, Biosecurity and Global Health, Dr Ismail Abdus-Salam, expressed confidence that the collaboration among stakeholders would produce well-costed, achievable and sustainable strategies.
He disclosed that the Lagos Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) is adequately staffed and currently undergoing a major upgrade, with more improvements planned to transform it into a top-tier emergency response hub.
Dr Olusola Abioye, Project Manager of RTI’s Global Health Security Agenda Nigeria, described Lagos as a critical hub for global health security due to its international travel connections and high population density.
Abioye said the SAPHS development process would strengthen Lagos’ ability to prevent, detect and respond to outbreaks over the next five years.
He added that the workshop—supported by the U.S. CDC and partners such as the World Bank and Resolve to Save Lives—provides a vital opportunity for Lagos to create a focused and forward-looking strategic health security plan.
Principal Advisor at Resolve to Save Lives, Dr Jenom Danjuma, commended Lagos for demonstrating strong political will and for refusing to inflate its performance scores to appear more capable.
Danjuma said Lagos’ willingness to acknowledge gaps places the state on a credible path to progress.
The workshop brought together health stakeholders from Lagos and experts from the NCDC, U.S. CDC, Research Triangle Institute (RTI), Resolve to Save Lives and other partners to develop the five-year health security roadmap.
