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FG’s essential medicines programme attracted $5.5m business to health sector — Ekiti Commissioner

Health sector has attracted a business worth $5.5 million in the past three years through the Federal government newly introduced Essential Medicines Programmes.

The Chairperson of the Nigeria Health Commissioners, Oyebamji Filani, made the disclosure at the 4th Leadership Breakfast meeting in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State.

He said with the feat recorded only in three years, Health sector could boost the nation’s GDP growth.

Filani disclosed that the programme commenced in Yobe, Kaduna, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Niger and Ekiti as pilot states in 2021.

“Between 2021 and today, we have done business together of just a little over $5.5 million using the current exchange rate.

‘If we had this discussion, three months ago, that $5.5 million would probably be $8.5 million. $5.5 million worth of business that we have done, five states.

“Now, imagine, if we scale this across the entire nation in terms of the resources that are available to build the capacity of the pharmaceutical companies and to move the health sector to becoming the net contributor to the Nigerian GDP.”

The federal government intends to improve the availability of healthcare commodities through the essential medicine programmes to achieve universal health coverage, he stated further.

Tribune Online learnt that the programme is being implemented through Public Private Partnerships (PPP) facilitated by the Africa Resource Center for Excellence in Supply Chain Management (ARC_ESM).

Under the arrangement, the six states in the pilot projects procure their health commodities from local pharmaceutical companies.

Filani said the pool procurement of commodities in the health sector has proved to be cost-saving, noting that N219 million was saved across four states in the last three years.

He saie, “Yobe recorded the highest percentage of contribution to the overall cost of saving at 53 percent. The state also recorded highest volume of commodities.

“In just the small approach that we put together, we have been able to save patients N219 million that they now have in their pockets that either use to buy food or use for something else.

“There are cost-savings that can be made. It is less than three years, we have done $5.5 million.

“Imagine that we begin to expand and scale up, there is huge amount of resources that we can retain internally in the country to spur productivity and growth in our pharmaceutical industry to ensure that you are planning and for us in the public place to guarantee good quality drugs and ensure that we can lock in prices for a related period so that we also plan accordingly. We look forward to working with everybody.”

The commissioner also has praised the performance of Yobe and five other states in the implementation of the programme.

He continued: “You can see that states are moving in the right direction, particularly for the primary healthcare facilities.

“Sokoto for instance, started with one percent of their primary healthcare facilities covered now they have about 12. You have Niger state that moved from 19 to 25. Yobe has done exceptionally well, 70 percent of the primary healthcare facilities are now covered under this programme. Ekiti is also moving in the right direction from 20 percent to 52 percent.”

While speaking, Oluwatosin Jolayemi, who is Chairman of pharmaceutical manufacturers group of MAN (PMG–MAN), assured that local manufacturers of drugs are ready to serve the nation.

“The pharmaceutical manufacturing industry is ready. We are ready to serve the nation in the capacity that God has given us.

“We are ready to do all we can, to give quality medicines and at the same time, we need the states that are going to join us, to work in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and all the people that would help this process.

“As manufacturers of quality products that we can depend on in Nigeria. We are well regulated – self regulated and regulated by NAFDAC and sometimes, ministry of health comes around to check our facilities. The assurance that we can give you is that we have quality medicines to go home with.”

In his remarks, Okey Akpa, the Managing Director of SKG Pharma Ltd, praised ARC_ESM and its CEO, Azuka Okeke, for the high level of commitment they have secured from the pharma group for the implementation of the project.

He said, “For ARC_ESM, To derisk this process, we want to see you increasingly engaging in advocacy, speaking to more people holding this kind of event.

“You can see it in this hall. I have never seen this number of CEOs in the shortest notice. All we need to hear is that Azuka wants you in Ekiti and it becomes an order. And all of us are heading to Ekiti by aircraft or bicycle or car, we’re all headed to Ekiti. If tomorrow we hear Azuka wants you in Yobe, we are all headed to Yobe.

“So that is the level of commitment that ARC_ESM has and we want you to leverage on that to De-Risk this PPP model.”

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