•  Nigeria shares success story

 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday took a swipe at pharmaceutical companies over the delay in producing a reliable cure and vaccine for the contagious Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)

 

WHO’s Director General, Dr. Margaret Chan, bemoaned the slow pace for cure and vaccines at the ongoing 64th WHO African regional summit taking place in Cotonou, Benin Republic.

 

Chan explained that the neglect of research by pharmaceutical companies for a possible cure had compounded the challenges of global healthcare service delivery,  stressing that, it had left the world “still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure.”

 

She blasted the companies, stating that because “Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations” no efforts have put in place to ensure that a cure and vaccine are arrived at.

 

“The research and development incentive is virtually nonexistent,” she observed. “A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay,” Chan told the gathering made up of African Ministers of Health and other stakeholders in the sector.

 

“Two WHO arguments that have fallen on deaf ears for decades are now out there with consequences that all the world can see, every day, on prime-time TV news,” she said.

 

Chan’s statement discrediting the commitment of pharmaceutical companies came as Nigeria’s Supervising Minister of Health, Dr. Khaliru Alhassan, has commended the intervention of the United Nation and its support to countries in the fight against the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), noting that these interventions have helped in no small measure to curtail the spread of the disease.

 

Alhassan gave this commendation in a statement to the 64th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa, in Cotonou where he shared the experiences of Nigeria’s Ebola success story with the 47-nation member body.

 

In making recommendations, the minister suggested that the Ebola response for Africa should be coordinated by the African Union (AU). He stated that the AU should work through the regional bodies, such as ECOWAS in the case of West Africa, so that all support will be coordinated by regional bodies, while the AU provides strategic guidance and leadership.

 

At the conference, in which Nigeria was constantly mentioned as a reference point for successful Ebola containment response, Africa’s most populous country shared its EVD containment strategy with the regional health body.

 

Paul Obi in Abuja with agency reports