NIGERIA is among the three nations left in the world with the tag “endemic” polio countries, sharing that worrying label with Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, no other African country is involved. But US Billionaire, and founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates says getting rid of polio in the country is his priority now. He is keen on supporting the effort to completely wipe off Polio disease on the globe through a partnership between his foundation, UNICEF, WHO and the Global Poverty Project. In this short interview, the billionaire spoke exclusively with SOCIAL ACTIVIST in New York last week at the annual UN General Assembly summit just before he joined President Jonathan to speak at a side event on Polio at the summit.
What drives you to want to be a part of the solution to a problem that has been persistent?
We’re making great progress with polio. People thought India would be the most difficult country; of course, the last case there was January 2011.
Even in Pakistan and Nigeria where (the polio fight) it has been tough, I see a level of commitment and activity that makes me feel like we will be able to get rid of polio in the years ahead.
It’s my top priority; my foundation puts a lot of resources into it. I’ll get to meet with the president of Nigeria and talk about the next steps. We’re going to win on this; it’ll become the second disease ever to be eradicated after small pox. It shouldn’t take too long if we do the right thing.
What will be your own personal fulfillment?
I think everybody involved feels awful when they see a child paralysed and if we don’t get the elimination, polio spreads back again and paralyses thousands and thousands of children.
So, if we do our job well, that will stop and so far this year Nigeria has recorded 88 cases and that’s 88 tragedies.
We’re also using the polio campaign to improve the routine vaccination and by doing that we vaccinate against all kinds of diseases: measles, diarrhea, pneumonia. If we get the vaccination right up where they should be, from about 20 per cent to up to maybe 80 per cent, literally hundreds of thousands of Nigerian children’s lives would be saved.
Very interesting, but what has been your experience in this fight against polio? What has been your experience working with Nigerian officials and bureaucracy?
Well, I’m very impressed with Dr Pate, the Minister of State for Health; He is a great health leader on polio and vaccination on a wide range of things and also the President (Jonathan) has been willing to bring the governors together. I’ve had very good meetings with the governors coming together.
During the election period there was some loss of focus on these issues and now people have regained that focus. The cases we are seeing this year, the increase, is really because of things that weren’t done a few years ago.
But now both the religious leaders have been very good, starting with the Sultan of Sokoto but all the different religious leaders and the governments have also been helpful. We have some local governments that are still not as engaged in the activities as they should be.
In fact, I’ll give the president, when I meet with him today (at the UN General Assembly meeting just ended), a list of those local govts, so that he can work with the Governors to approve that.
We’re involving every element of society as much as we can. In fact, even Mr. Dangote from the business community said that he wants to understand how he can help, how he can lend his voice. We’re excited that there’s a strong consensus of political, religious and business leaders that it’s time to get this done. Just a few years of good work should bring it to an end in Nigeria, which is the last African country that never thought of zero cases.
How long do you think it would take to accomplish this and do you have any challenge working with the health care infrastructure in Nigeria?
Well, its interesting how such a high percentage of cases, almost all of which have been in the North...We want to make sure that if we finish polio, we leave behind a great routine immunisation infrastructure – that is, the staffing, clinics, the refrigerators in the clinics, the understanding that the parents know where they go and when they go.
That’s going to change health dramatically – in Nigeria – we ought to be able to cut the number of children who die under five in half and the president has been talking about the number of lives that could be saved.
So, Polio is tied in into this whole health infrastructure improvement and Dr Pate has set some ambitious goals, its challenging but it’s absolutely solvable and if we do the right things, we only have a few more years. If we don’t get all done right, then it’ll take additional years.
No comments:
Post a Comment