By Joseph Erunke, ABUJA

Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, GAVI, said Nigeria has the largest zero dose population in the world, with 2.3 million children.

This was as the vaccine alliance said it would save the lives of over 5.6 million people in Nigeria by 2030.

The Interim Chief Executive Officer of GAVI, David Marlow, said these when he accompanied the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, on an assessment visit to some primary healthcare centres in Karu, Nasarawa State.

The visit was aimed at affording the GAVI team opportunity to have a first hand experience of the progress Nigeria has made so far in mmunization and Primary Health Care as well as challenges preventing the government from reaching children with life-saving vaccines.

Speaking at the palace of Esu Karu, Pharm. Luka Baba Panya, where the team paid a courtesy call on before proceeding for the assessment, he said: “We spoke earlier, with the Honourable Minister, Professor Pate about also the future opportunity to prevent deaths in Nigeria and the potential is that by 2030,we would save 5.6 million people’s livees. And that does not even exclude many other potential vaccines such as malaria that we can bring to this country.

“So our partnership is so important to us and we will do everything that we can to support the communities and to serve the country.

“I’m here to listen, to listen carefully to what you have to tell us, so that we can go back and strengthen the work that we do.”

Continuing,he said:“It is for me a great privilege to be here today with you and to really connect and see how you are facing the challenges of health in your communities, and how we can support you to help in strengthening your primary health care systems. And also to make sure we understand your need and your challenges,because GAVI is here to look after the countries that we work in, and your voices therefore matter.

” And we would continue the strong partnership that we built over many years since the year 2000.We have been active in Nigeria and although there has been many accomplishments in making progress in overall health care in the country, there is still a huge amount of work to be done.”

The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate, speaking, said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was determined to improve the health and general wellbeing of Nigerians.

Pate assured Nigerians that vaccines do not only work but that they are also safe and the most important tools used to save millions of lives of children.

He said:“Vaccines work and they are the most cost effective tools for saving the lives of children.

“They’re safe, and they work and they protect many children from diseases like measles, like polio, diarrheal diseases, Pneumonia.

“But there are still many children that we miss, and that we need to do more to ensure that we reduce those who are completely missing the zero children and as a government, the federal government is committed to work with the state government and the community leaders to ensure that every Nigerian child ultimately gets the benefit of this life saving tools of vaccines, as well as treatment of other diseases.

“They are vaccines against cancer, for instance, which affects a woman. The third largest burden of cancer in Nigeria is actually the cancer that affects women. There is a vaccine for it.”

Prof. Pate explained that the visit to the place of the Etsu Karu was to seek his support and  guidance as the federal government intensified efforts to improve the health of children through immunization.

He said:“And consistent with that spirit of transformation, we realize and we know that traditional leaders are the custodians of tradition.

“You are with the people and when we partner with you, we succeed. We saw that like polio, we saw that with many of the children that had been done in other areas because  you are advocates of what matters to the people.

“So it is in that spirit, that when we engage with global  partners like GAVI that are here with us  we felt that we should come up and present ourselves to reaffirm the partnership that exists within the government  and yourselves to ask for your support, prayers, guidance, because you did a lot and you’re continuing to do a lot of work to help advance the cause of health and immunization in particular.”

On his part, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Developemnt Agency,NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, commended the minister and the GAVI team for creating time for the visit.

According to him, the visit has a lot of significance and that it will yield tremendous result in the days ahead.

“Over the course of the next few weeks, the importance of this visit will manifest. You will not hear from me, you will hear from the royal father when David Marlow and his team go back.

 “It will be our responsibility  to channel through your Commissioner for Health, your Executive Secretary, State Primary Healthcare Board, some of the dividends of this visits,”he said.