The Nigerian government has set a target to provide reliable electricity to at least 30 per cent of health facilities by the end of 2027, as about 40 per cent of functional Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) currently lack access to electricity.

The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at the official launch of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA)-Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO).

The event was held under the theme, “Powering Sustainable Growth: Launching Nigeria’s Renewable Asset Management Company.”

Mr Salako said the electricity deficit in health facilities was undermining healthcare delivery, noting that reliable power was not merely an infrastructure requirement but a determinant of health outcomes.

“In a hospital, electricity is not an amenity; it is a clinical input,” he said.

He explained that electricity was required for critical services and equipment, including vaccine cold chains, oxygen concentrators, operating theatres and incubators for premature babies.

According to Mr Salako, between 60 and 70 per cent of Nigeria’s primary and tertiary health facilities experience frequent power outages or lack electricity altogether.

“About 40 per cent of functional PHCs have no electricity access, with most of the remaining 60 per cent receiving only six to 10 hours of electricity per day,” he said.

Hospitals spend up to 50% of their operating costs on energy
Mr Salako said the unreliable power supply was also placing a significant financial burden on teaching hospitals.

According to him, teaching hospitals require between three and eight megawatts to operate optimally but receive roughly five hours of electricity from the national grid daily.

He said this had resulted in hospitals committing between 40 and 50 per cent of their operating expenditure to energy, much of it spent on diesel.

Mr Salako acknowledged efforts by the Federal Ministry of Power and the REA to provide sustainable electricity to health facilities.

He said federal tertiary health institutions, including teaching hospitals in Maiduguri and Calabar, had benefited from the Energising Education Programme.

Under the Nigeria Electrification Project, he said 100 health facilities had also received 50 kilowatt containerised solar hybrid systems, while a second phase would target 400 PHCs.

Despite these interventions, Salako said the sustainability of renewable energy systems remained a major concern.

Steady power in 30% of facilities by 2027
Mr Salako said the 30 per cent target was part of the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative approved by President Bola Tinubu following the first National Stakeholders’ Dialogue on Power in the Health Sector held in September 2025.

According to him, the dialogue produced a Compact for the Sustainable Electrification of Public and Private Health Facilities, signed by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Federal Ministry of Power, sub-national governments, the Committee of CMDs/MDs, the private sector, development partners and civil society.

He said the dialogue also produced an implementation plan aimed at ensuring that at least 30 per cent of health facilities in Nigeria had a steady power supply by the end of 2027.

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The initiative also produced a governance structure on which the REA and other government agencies sit, Mr Salako said.

He said achieving the target would require private capital and partnerships, as the government alone could not finance the scale of energy infrastructure needed across Nigeria’s health system.

RAMCO-health sector collaboration
Mr Salako proposed four areas of collaboration between RAMCO and the Nigeria Power-for-Health Initiative.

He called for health facilities to be recognised as a distinct asset class within RAMCO’s portfolio, beginning with teaching hospitals that had already been solarised under the Energising Education Programme and systems delivered to health facilities under the Nigeria Electrification Project.

He also proposed linking RAMCO’s professional asset management with the institutionalisation of Facility Energy Management Teams in hospitals, with support from UK PACT.

According to him, RAMCO’s asset register should be integrated with health facility energy audits so that both sectors can plan on a single evidence base.

He further proposed that a defined share of RAMCO’s capital be directed towards PHCs, which he described as the sites least commercially attractive but most consequential for maternal and newborn survival.

Mr Salako said the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare would support RAMCO by giving it a seat on the Inter-Agency Technical Committee of the Power-for-Health Initiative.

A worker at Frankfurt Airport in Germany has died of malaria in a rare outbreak believed to have been caused by infected mosquitoes brought into the country on an aircraft.

Five other airport workers have also contracted the disease and are receiving medical treatment, according to the BBC.

The airport operator, Fraport, confirmed the death on Wednesday. “Sadly, we must confirm that one employee has died as a result of the infection,” a Fraport spokesperson told the BBC.

The outbreak is being investigated by Frankfurt’s Public Health Department, with officials trying to establish how the workers became infected.

The BBC reported that the six infected workers are men who work in different areas and perform different jobs at the airport. None is known to have travelled to a country where malaria is common.

German health authorities believe the infections may have been caused by mosquitoes brought into Germany on an aircraft. Mosquito traps have now been installed at the airport, while captured mosquitoes are being analysed to determine their species and origin.

Rare outbreak

The cases are described as “airport malaria”, a rare form of transmission that can occur when an infected mosquito is transported on an aircraft or in luggage and later bites people at or near an airport.

Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the country’s federal public health and disease control agency, said the first four workers became ill between 4 and 6 July.

The institute said malaria cases in Germany exclusively involve people who were infected while travelling to malaria-endemic areas, making transmission at a German airport unusual.

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The last documented case of airport malaria at Frankfurt Airport was in 2023, the RKI said.

Frankfurt’s public health authorities have said the risk to the general population remains very low because malaria is not transmitted directly from person to person. It is spread through the bites of infected mosquitoes.

Malaria remains a major public health concern in Nigeria, although recent data show signs of progress.

In July, Malaria Consortium reported that malaria prevalence in Nigeria had fallen from 42 per cent in 2010 to 15.2 per cent in 2025.

Despite the decline, the organisation said Nigeria continues to carry one of the world’s heaviest malaria burdens, with children under five and pregnant women disproportionately affected.

Malaria is caused by parasites transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable, but can become severe or fatal when diagnosis and treatment are delayed.