Nigeria is set to witness a boom in its health care delivery services as a Japanese company, Nijap-Fuji Nigeria Limited, partners with hospitals across the country in the supply of high- tech medical diagnostic equipment.

The chairman,  Nijap-Fuji Nigeria Limited, Mr. Kato Kazumichi, who disclosed this over the weekend, said the aim is to bring Nigeria’s health care sector to the Japanese level as Japan has the highest life expectancy in the world, attributed to the highly – developed health care facilities.

The House of Representatives has launched an investigation into alleged misappropriation of Global Fund’s grant of $1,349,087 between July and December 2013 by the workers of the Department of Health Planning, Research and Statistics (DPRS).

This is even as the lawmakers berated the management of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) for allowing drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS  to expire in their stores before beneficiaries could access them.

The Federal Government on Tuesday said the pest,Tuta absoluta,popularly known as ‘Tomato Ebola’, which is responsible for the massive destruction of tomato in farmlands, had invaded six states in Nigeria.

It also disclosed that Nigeria spent about N80bn ($400m) annually importing tomato paste, adding that many of the imported products were substandard.

The Eastern Naval Command on Monday took free medical services to the people of Ugep in Yakurr local government area of Cross River State as part of activities lined up to mark the Nigerian navy’s 60th anniversary. Some of the services offered include blood pressure test, diabetes screening, malaria treatment, deworming, health talk, eye screening as well as drug administration.

In his opening remark at the event, the flag officer commanding (FOC), Eastern Naval Command, Rear Admiral James Oluwole, said the event was aimed at boosting the Nigerian navy’s relationship with the civil populace.

Ethiopia’s foreign minister and previous health minister, Tedros Adhanom, has thrown his hat into the ring as Africa’s first and only candidate for the post of director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

A new U.N. health chief will be appointed during next year’s World Health Assembly.

Merck, a leading science and technology company, announced today that the largest single delivery of praziquantel tablets in the history of the Merck Praziquantel Donation Program recently arrived in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. The west African country has received around 34 million tablets for mass distribution to school children. With this, Merck has donated more tablets to a single country than it did to the entire continent in 2012 (27 million).

In response to the plight of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the country, the federal government has commenced a health insurance scheme targeted at ensuring that they get integrated into the larger society.

Speaking at the flag-off of the pilot scheme at Sabon Kuchingoro, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the acting Federal Commissioner of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced (NCFRMI), Margarette Essien, said 80 households of six persons each making up 480 persons will be captured in the first phase.