American billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has cautioned the Government of Nigeria against diverting its limited health fund into trying to pay a high price for COVID-19 vaccines.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gates advised on Tuesday night during a virtual press conference ahead of the launch of the 2021 Bill and Melinda Gates Annual Letters.
According to Gate, waiting for the GAVI vaccines would be the best thing for Nigeria, and investing proposed vaccine funds into other health-related areas would assist to deepen vaccine coverage and save lives.
GAVI is a global vaccine alliance that brings both public and private sectors together, creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries.
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GAVI is co-leading COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. This involves coordinating the COVAX Facility, a global risk-sharing mechanism for pooled procurement and equitable distribution of eventual COVID-19 vaccines.
NAN also reported that the National Primary Health Care Development Agency Executive Director, Mr Faisal Shuaib, had said Nigeria aimed to vaccinate 70 per cent of its population to stop the transmission of COVID-19.
Shuaib said about 40 per cent of the population would be vaccinated against COVID-19 in 2021, the remaining 30 per cent before the end of 2022.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, reported that the Federal Government needed about N400 billion to vaccinate 70 per cent of Nigeria’s 211 million population.
“The key is that Nigeria is still eligible (for GAVI Vaccines), and so a lot of those vaccines, would come through the GAVI facility that we’ve raised money for,” Gates said.
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Gates stressed that the impact of investing funds into the health system, particularly the primary health care system, would be very high in terms of saving children’s lives.
“I’m an advocate for the government to have more resources and prioritise health. I’m not a voter in Nigeria, so Nigeria can decide that independently.
“So my advice is that the primary health care system is what’s super important and that with those finite resources, you have to prioritise expenditure.
“And in that case, waiting for the GAVI vaccines would be the best thing,” he said.
According to him, the deaths resulting from the deficits of primary health care were dramatically higher every year than the total deaths going on in Africa from the pandemic.
“So I hope it causes everyone in society to look at these health issues.
“There should be close to 100 per cent coverage of all the vaccines and you need to have those very functional primary health care systems because the number of lives you can save is huge,” he said.
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