Professor Adewole: Nigeria’s minister of health

The Federal Government paid 1.9 billion dollars as counterpart fund for GAVI Transition Plan which will run for the next 10 years, the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, said on Thursday in Kano.

The minister made this known at the opening of the 61st National Council on Health (NCH) meeting.

Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI) is the largest global platform that mobilises human, financial and logistic support and resources for vaccine-preventable ailments.

Adewole said that the GAVI board had approved Nigeria’s proposal for transition for Nigeria Strategy for Routine Immunisation and Primary Health Care Systems Strengthening (NSIPSS).

He added that the investment was worth over three billion dollars, saying that GAVI committed 1.03 billion dollars for the programme, while Federal Government contribute 1.9 billion dollars in the next 10 years (2018-2028).

According to him, the benefits are that the lives of additional 1.539,651 children under the age of one year will be saved by 2028 ‎by increasing immunisation rates to 85 per cent in states of the federation.

The minister explained that the programme would also help to improve the supply chain system for vaccines to consolidate the gains in polio eradication.

He described the theme for this year’s NCH — “Roadmap for Achieving Universal Health Coverage” as apt and timely.

He said that Nigeria developed its first five-year (2010-2015) National Strategic Health Development Plan (NSHDP) in collaboration with stakeholders in the health sector in 2010.

He added that the long awaited second NSHDP plan was now ready ‎and the country had another well articulated and robust plan which was the product of vigorous and extensive work by government and stakeholders.

He noted that the country had made progress in the fight against Tuberculosis, saying “we increased GeneXpert‎ sites from seven health facilities in 2011 to 390 facilities as at the end of 2017 and also increased microscopic centres from two to 139 across the country in 2017.”

Adewole said that the Ministry of Health had developed and submitted a comprehensive health support plan for the 91,000 Nigerian returnees that were expected from Cameroon, comprising 4,000 from Adamawa and 87,000 from Borno.

Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State had earlier said that the state government was working to improve health system through many health facilities and equipment.

He said that regardless of the financial constraints of the state government in the last three years, it invested significantly to improve the health sector, adding that the state government had completed two ultra-modern hospitals.

The governor added that the  state government had employed doctors, nurses and other health practitioners to provide quality health manpower to hospitals in the state.

According to him, the state government has been running three free health programmes namely: the Free Maternal and Child Healthcare, free accident and emergency services and free eye care programme.