NHIA expands coverage to include HIV, TB, other critical illnesses

•Hits 20 million enrollees

By Henry Uche

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) says it has expanded the national health insurance scheme to cover some extreme health cases including people with HIV (PLHIV) and for TB patients, with pilots under way in four states.

It also said that it has been able to meet and surpass the federal government’s target of enrollees under the health insurance scheme by 99 per cent two years before the target date of 2027.

These were disclosed by Mrs. Aisha Abubakar Haruna, acting Director, Lagos regional office of the NHIA who represented Dr Kelechi Ohiri, the Director General, NHIA at the annual general meeting of the Nigerian Association of Insurance and Pension Editors, NAIPE in Lagos recently.

Ohiri, who announced that the health insurance now covers no fewer than 20million Nigerians up from 16.8million in 2023 and achieving 99 per cent of the 2027 presidential target, explained that the Authority achieved an additional 800,000 beneficiaries who joined the basic health care provision fund bringing the total to 2.6 million as of May 2025.

Ohiri also stated that the NHIA embarked on addressing drug shortages and care delays via the multi-project strategy.

He said: “NHIA has focused on expanding health insurance coverage, improving quality of care and protecting the rights of enrollees while strategically and creatively deploying health insurance to save lives in a way that contributes and sustains significant benefit to the health sector.

“As of June 2025, NHIA has achieved 20 million enrollees in health insurance. This was the combined efforts by the state health insurance agencies, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and the National Health Insurance Scheme.

“As a matter of fact, we have exceeded the mandates given to us by the president. We have a significant jump from 16.8 million Nigerians enrolled by 2023. By June 2025, we have hit 20 million. We have also embarked on addressing drug shortages and care delays via the multi-project strategy.”

The NHIA DG noted that from 2024 to 2025, NHIA has strategically intervened in the revision of tariffs, revising the accreditation processes and mandating one hour limit on care authorization while mitigating previous issues for medicine shortages, denial, delay in issue codes and provider payment delays.