Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has called on private investors to invest in the country’s health sector.

Emefiele, who made the call Friday at the launch of Duchess International Hospital, a newly built 100-suit health facility located in Ikeja, Lagos, said medical tourism puts a huge strain on the country’s foreign reserves.

He said: “Medical tourism puts a huge strain on our foreign reserves, and more importantly, for every $1bn allocated to medical treatment abroad, there is less than $1bn that could be available to other critical sectors of our economy,”

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“As part of this effort, the CBN and select private sector stakeholders supported COVID-19 intervention initiatives through CACOVID.”

The Nigerian apex bank boss further said:  “When we started COVID-19 intervention initiatives, the CBN set aside N100bn to support the healthcare sector, but upon the rise in demand, we have disbursed N107.7bn, supporting 114 healthcare projects which include medical diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, dental services, eye clinics both private and public hospital – just to mention a few,”