Polio: Bill Gates, Dangote pledges $100m as Buhari hints on taskforce
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NIGERIA: TO ensure strong oversight and funding of polio program in the country, the Federal Government has promised to reconstitute an expanded presidential task-force in this regard.
The move came at the time US billionaire, Mr. Bill Gates, Africa’s richest man and Nigeria’s business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, and the President, Global Development of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Christopher J. Elias, entered into pact to donate $100 million to the fight polio in the country.
The body, when put in place according to President Muhammadu Buhari, would sustain the successes recorded by the various governments in stamping out polio in the country.
The taskforce, which will include the 36 state governors, Buhari said, would carry out surveillance and routine immunization programs.
Buhari stated this when he received Gates in company of Dangote and others, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja at the signing of the updated Abuja commitment on polio eradication.
Buhari said: “I would like to assure you that the Federal government will continue to provide strong oversight and funding for polio program.
“To this effect, we will reconstitute an expanded Presidential Taskforce on Polio which will include the 36 states’ Governors to sustain the successes of our current polio eradication activities such as surveillance and routine immunization programs.”
Buhari praised Gates for his commitment to health issues in the country, while also assuring him that government would work with him at all times.
“I would like to seize this opportunity to thank Mr. Gates for his continued commitment and support to various health care causes in Nigeria especially through maternal and child healthcare programs,” the President said.
He stressed: “You should be rest assured of the Government of Nigeria’s support as we continue to work together for the betterment of all Nigerians in particular, the vulnerable ones.
“I am very encouraged by the progress we are making on the immunization front,” he said, adding: “This gives me comfort that we are on the right track to ensure our children and grand-children will never know of polio and its adverse impacts on lives and livelihood.”
“Here, I will commend and thank all our partners, including both Mr. Gates and Alhaji Dangote for their personal commitments to this worthy cause,” the President said.
Buhari further said: “I am pleased to inform you that the 6 states mostly impacted by polio have signed an MoU on routine immunization.
“This MOU is a commitment by the State Governments, namely Kano, Bauchi, Borno, Kaduna, Sokoto and Yobe, to strengthen Primary Health care system through community sensitization and support programs.”
“Based on this, I will take this opportunity to call on all state governors, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and the Federal Ministry of Health to sustain this momentum to ensure we maintain the zero polio case status,” he said.
Earlier, Dangote said after signing the pact – under Dangote Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – that they were fully prepare to help tackle immunization issues said to be affecting about 11 million children, mostly in the Northern parts of the country.
Gates also said after meeting Buhari with Dangote that efforts must be made to eradicate polio and ensure proper immunization as Nigeria’s key resource persons are its young population.
Under the new initiative, the foundation would fund the program up till 2020 and beyond in the North West and the war-ravaged North East.
Gates, who is the founder of Microsoft, said that it was necessary to do all to solve malnutrition problems, as failing to doing so would have devastating effects.
- By Temitope Odupitan
