Nigeria’s Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima on Thursday restated the country’s commitment to the eradication of the variant poliovirus by the end of 2023 and to ensuring that every Nigerian child is covered in routine immunization campaigns.
The VP stated this at the meeting he held with Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates; Nigerian Industrialist, Aliko Dangote; and some governors under the auspices of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, at the Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
While pointing out that Nigeria achieved wild polio eradication in 2016 with the support of sub-national governments and development partners, the vice president said there was still much work to be done as the country faces new threats.
“We don’t intend to slow down until we deliver on our promise to eradicate the polio virus by the end of 2023.
“We won’t stop until we build a robust framework to ease access to vaccines and palliatives.
“We won’t stop until we ensure that the resources deployed by our partners and our counterpart funding are disbursed for the intended purpose.
“We won’t stop until we ensure that the children in our remotest villages have access to first primary healthcare and nutrition like their peers in our cities.”
The Vice President said that three-dose pentavalent vaccine coverage has improved in Nigeria from 33% in 2016 to 57% in 2021.
He stated further that “the variant polio virus has declined in Nigeria by 84% from 2021, falling to fewer than 200 cases in 2022.”
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The Vice President commended the states that have achieved high-category immunization coverage, which is between 60% and 80% of the target demographic and added that the number of such states has expanded from 12 to 21 states in five years.
He assured that “The Federal Government and our respective state governments are going to set in place a transparent process and structure to undo the reality of the country as one with one of the highest proportions of non-immunized infants in the world over the last decade.”
Vice President Shettima stressed that the Federal Government is “committed to eradicating variant poliovirus by the end of the year ensuring that every Nigerian child is covered in the routine immunization campaigns.”
Vaccine production
On the issue of the production of vaccines for the immunization of children, the Vice President assured that “we are going to work together to ensure that these vaccines are made available even to zero-dose children, of which ours, at 2 million, are the highest in the world after India.”
The Vice President expressed the appreciation of the Federal Government to partners such as Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s Foundation and of Bill Gates Foundation, whose empathy shone through the uncertain period in Nigeria’s history.
Earlier in his remarks at the interactive session, Mr Bill Gates disclosed that his foundation recently announced the intention to commit $7 billion to Africa in the next four years to support routine immunization in Nigeria, and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in Northern Nigeria.
Gates said he was optimistic about the future of Nigeria and urged the Nigerian government to invest in the health and opportunities of the youth.
Improving Nigeria’s health sector
In his remarks, Alhaji Aliko Dangote stated that he had been partnering with Bill Gates, the Federal and State Governments for several years, in the efforts to eradicate polio and improve routine immunization, nutrition and primary healthcare in the country.
“We genuinely believe that the National Economic Council and the decisions that you will make over the next four years will determine whether Nigeria has sound economic growth, by keeping its citizens happy and achieving the sustainable development goals,” he said.
Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, who spoke to State House correspondents, said that the parley would continue because it would look at the overhaul of the entire health delivery system in Nigeria.
In separate remarks, the Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Kwara State Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq and some Governors who spoke at the parley lauded the philanthropic interventions of the Dangote and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations in critical areas including healthcare, education, agriculture and human capital development.
The Governors expressed their readiness to further collaborate with the Dangote and Gates Foundation in the coming years.
Emmanuel Ukoh
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