The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, prof. Ali Pate says Nigeria accounts for 30 percent of the world’s malaria burden with Kano State ranking one of the highest.
The Executive Director of Global Fund, Peter Sands noted that the Federal Government was committing over $50 million to tackle malaria, adding it would invest about a billion dollars ($1 billion) in Nigeria in the next three years and 50 million of that will be invested in Kano.
Prof. Ali spoke yesterday in Kano when he led a delegation of global health partners on a courtesy visit to the state government.
The Minister said, “We (along with our visitors) are here in Kano State as the first state we have decided to go to engage with leaders like you in order to improve the health of our population.
“Improved health is an investment in any society because that is the only investment that can guarantee productive, prosperity and investment. Health is at the centre of any serious country’s development agenda and our president Bola Ahmed Tinubu has taken the bold move and in expectations, the Federal government is ready to partner and work with states towards improving the health population of the country so that we can unleash the population’s potential. Effectious diseases like malaria, we have almost 30 per cent of the world’s burden of malaria and Kano is one of the highest burden states.
So it is so important, that some of the good works that are being done by Kano need to be sustained or expanded with the intervention from the Global Health Partners. The partners have seen the picture of things and they are ready to support Nigeria, only if the states are committed to work together to achieve the objectives.”
On his part, the Executive Director of GF said: “From Global Fund perspective, Kano is very important. We will invest about a billion dollars ($1 billion) in Nigeria in the next three years and 50 million of that will be invested in Kano. Nigeria does have the highest burden of malaria in the world with 200,000 Nigerians (mainly children and pregnant women) dying of malaria. Malaria is an evitable disease. Global Funds is fully behind you in your effort to beat these diseases, improve the health and welfare of the people of Kano.”
