Nigeria to set up fund to fight coronavirus

Nigerian government says plans are underway to create a 500 billion naira ($1.39bn) coronavirus fund to strengthen its healthcare infrastructure to tackle the virus.

Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed, House of Representatives speaker Femi Gbajabiamila and Senate President Ahmad Lawan agreed in a meeting that the crisis intervention fund would pull in cash as loans from various special government accounts and get the rest from grants and loans from multilateral institutions, a statement said.

“This cisis intervention fund is to be utilised to upgrade healthcare facilities,” Ahmed said in the statement.