The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, has disclosed that the Global Alliance For Vaccine Immunization (GAVI) to prioritise Nigeria in the roll-out of the malaria vaccine
Pate made the disclosure at the GAVI visit to New Karu Primary Healthcare Centre on Thursday in Karu Local Government Area of Nassarawa State.
Pate further described malaria as a very important disease and said it should be tackled the same way polio was tackled
He said: “Gavi just told us that they’ll prioritise Nigeria to roll out the new malaria vaccine over time. That doesn’t mean no more nets, that doesn’t mean no treatment, but at least we have additional tools in the fight against malaria”.
Pate pointed out that there has been a lot of investment from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), State Government, and complimented partners like GAVI over the years, and those investments had achieved great results in reaching the children with life-saving vaccines.
He, therefore, said there were still many children who were missed, and there was the need to do more to ensure that the number of those who had completely missed the immunization was restored.
Pate further disclosed that the third largest burden of cancer was cervical cancer ravaging Nigerian women, to this, he said the Federal Government had begun roll out of the HPV vaccine in some states to save young girls and give them a chance to life.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, explained that the choice of Nassarawa state was because it showed progress in terms of the investments in immunization and primary health care and also had visible challenges that prevented children from accessing life-saving vaccines, despite all of the investments that had been made.
“Also, the community had a traditional leader who was in tune with his people and understood the value of health and the value of connecting communities with primary health care centers.”
Shuaib also promised Nassarawa state that the dividends of their visit would be visible over the course of the next few weeks.
Speaking on the reason for his visit,
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer of GAVI, David Marlow, said it was a great privilege to be with the people, to connect with them, see how they were facing the challenges of health in their communities, and how to support and help strengthen their primary health care systems.
The visit was also to “make sure we understand your need and challenges, because GAVI is here to look after the countries we work in, and your voices therefore matter. And we would continue the strong partnership we built over many years since 2000. We have been active in Nigeria, and although there have been many accomplishments in making progress in overall health care in the country, there is still a huge amount of work to be done.
“Now Nigeria has the largest zero dose children population in the world, with 2.3 million we spoke earlier, with the Honorable Professor Pate, about also the future opportunity to prevent deaths in Nigeria, and the potential is by 2030 to save 5.6 million people’s lives, and that does not even exclude many other potential vaccines such as malaria that we can bring to this country.
“So our partnership is important to us, and we will do everything we can for the communities and to serve the country. You have time today, and I’m here to listen carefully to what you have to tell us so that we can go back and strengthen our work”, he said.
The Etsu of Karu, Pharm. Luka Panya Baba thanked GAVI and the Government for reaching his community with life-saving vaccines.
The Traditional ruler also assured that his community will not back down in the campaign against vaccine-preventable diseases and will also raise the campaign higher to reduce maternal and child deaths.
and then