Health inflation in Nigeria surged to 30.35 per cent in January 2026, more than doubling the national headline inflation rate of 15.10 per cent and underscoring severe financial stress for households grappling with high medical costs.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed a divergent trend. While overall price growth moderated from the previous year, the health component accelerated sharply from 20.09 per cent in January 2025. The health CPI sub-index rose from 109.4 points a year earlier to 142.6 points in January 2026. In contrast, the all-items index increased from 110.7 to 127.4 points over the same period.
Steady increases marked the health index throughout 2025, climbing from 111.1 points in February to 129.9 by July and reaching 142.4 by December 2025 before a marginal rise to 142.6 in January 2026. Despite declines in food and core inflation, health costs have proved persistently high. Health contributed 0.91 percentage points to the overall January 2026 inflation rate, a significant impact given its 6.06 weight in the CPI basket.
The broader services sector, which includes health, saw inflation of 22.17 per cent year-on-year, compared to 11.03 per cent for goods. Analysts attribute the sticky health inflation to structural pressures, including costly pharmaceutical imports, high energy prices for hospitals, and foreign exchange pass-through effects.
This trend persists despite a June 2024 federal executive order that eliminated tariffs and taxes on pharmaceutical machinery and raw materials to lower drug costs. Reporting by PUNCH in August 2025 found that instead of decreasing, prices for many essential medicines rose between 30 and 100 per cent, citing poor implementation of the policy, import dependency, and foreign exchange constraints as key drivers.
Public health physicians have warned that soaring out-of-pocket healthcare expenses are pushing more Nigerian families into poverty, forcing difficult choices between seeking treatment and affording basic necessities. The sustained health inflation rate highlights systemic vulnerabilities in healthcare financing and supply chains, with direct implications for household welfare and poverty levels in Africa’s most populous nation.
