By Muhammad Amaan
American philanthropist, Bill Gates, says innovation and growth achieved from past success will accelerate Africa’s health targets to save more lives and improve prosperity.
Gates said this during a panel discussion on Funding and Partnership held during the Goalkeepers Nigeria event on Wednesday in Lagos.
“Because we’ll have lots of innovations, the ability to solve health problems will be that much better. And many of the diseases will be gone.
“There were new vaccines that were made cheaper like rotavirus and pneumococcus, and Gavi is a group that helps fund most of those costs to make sure they get to all the world’s children,” he said.
He emphasised that innovation had assisted in the reduction of maternal and child deaths, malaria mortality, preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission, reducing malnutrition, and upscaling vaccine coverage.
Gates said improving health systems would accelerate the economic growth of countries.
“We’ve seen with Asian countries that invest in health, they grow their economy, and eventually they get this middle-income status, and they’re able to be basically self-sufficient.
“In the next 20 years, the countries in Africa will get to that stage,” he said.
He cited its foundation’s commitment to spend the majority of his $200 billion target over the next 20 years on partnering with African governments that prioritise the health and well-being of their citizens.
Gates stressed that this would assist in accelerating progress in health and development through innovation and partnership
Similarly, Chairman of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, expressed optimism that Nigeria could transform its health sector just as it did for the petroleum industry.
Dangote noted that Nigeria moved from being a net importer of petrol to having the largest refinery in Africa and exporting petrol.
He emphasised that the same feat could be recorded to transform the health sector, enhance pharmaceutical production and reduce medical tourism.
Dangote highlighted its foundation’s collaboration with Gates Foundation to eradicate polio, strengthen primary healthcare, upscale nutrition among other interventions in the country.
Also, Governor Muhammad Yahaya of Gombe State, noted that improving primary healthcare, funding, infrastructure and access to innovative tools had assisted to accelerate health goals in his state.
“Today, immunisation coverage has improved to around 50 per cent, and access to primary healthcare has risen to between 40 and 45 per cent.
“In addition, we now have the required infrastructure across the state,” Yahaya said.
Governor Yahaya emphasised that the impact reflected in reduced maternal and child mortality rates, improved staff performance, and enhanced service delivery.
Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers event, hosted in Lagos for the first time, converged global leaders, scientists, health experts and changemakers to assess progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
