- advises Nigeria to wait for GAVI vaccines
American Philanthropist, Bill Gates, has advised the Nigerian government to channel more investment into the country’s primary health care system, rather than investing heavily in the acquisition of high-price COVID-19 vaccines.
Gates gave this advice during a virtual press conference ahead of the launch of the 2021 Bill and Melinda Gates Annual Letters.
He noted that 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.
According to Gates: “my advice is that the primary health care system is what’s super important and that with those finite resources, you have to prioritize expenditure. “And in that case, waiting for the GAVI vaccines would be the best thing”.
Gavi is a global Vaccine Alliance that brings together public and private sectors, creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries.
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.
The American Philanthropist who revealed that the deaths from the deficits of primary health care were dramatically higher every year than the total deaths going on in Africa from the pandemic; 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.
“The key is that Nigeria is still eligible (for GAVI Vaccine), and so, for a lot of those vaccines, they will come through the GAVI facility that we’ve raised money for”
“I’m an advocate for the government to have more resources and prioritize health. Obviously I’m not a voter in Nigeria, so Nigeria can decide that independently”. he said.
Coronavirus infection in Nigeria has continued to rise at an alarming rate with the country recording over 124,000 confirmed cases and 1,500 deaths since the outbreak of the virus.
