We Will Support Nigeria to Eradicate Schistosomiasis Disease

Posted on: Thu 03-12-2015

Last month, Nigeria took delivery of 71 million tablets of Praziquantel drug donation from Merck to fight schistosomiasis disease. In an interview with the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the company, Stefan Oschmann, he revealed that they will do much more in eradicating the disease in the country. Martins Ifijeh brings excerpts

Our plans for Nigeria

We have developed what we call Africa Strategy Development Parameters, such as demographic and economic growths and we have come to a conclusion that Africa is the most vibrant growth area in the world, and the congregates of all African economy might be the next, after China and we want to be part of this.

We have opened our office in Lagos and we have had sessions with different political stakeholders in Abuja on Universal Health Coverage and how Nigeria can make progress in the area of healthcare. We are also working on our core responsibility project and the most important one that we have is to combat Schistosomiasis, a disease that is very prevalent in Nigeria. Only this year, we donated millions of Praziquantel tablets to Nigeria healthcare system so that most school children can be treated.

It is a terrible disease many children have died from, many cannot go to school, and have retarded development. However, this can be solved. Nigeria is one of the countries that have made rapid progress in treating this disease.

Our role in tackling HIV and other diseases in Nigeria

We are trying to be partner in solving the problems. We have just presented a new technology system that can make a big impact on HIV diagnosis and treatment. It can also be applied to other diseases. We will also contribute in the fight against counterfeit medicine which is a big problem in Nigeria and many other countries. We are also doing capacity advanced programmes in the so called Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in Nigeria and other African countries.

Healthcare systems in Nigeria and other African countries have been focused on infectious diseases such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis among others, neglecting other tropical diseases. The NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory disease and mental health is becoming more important. We have been working with academic institutions so that medical students can train better in areas such as diabetes. We are also getting involved in local communities so that they can do better in early detection of such diseases and to also work on lifestyle changes because many of these diseases can be prevented without drugs. Some can be tackled with simple lifestyle changes.

The issue of drug distribution is another challenge. For medicine, supply chain is very important; some problems with theft need to be addressed. We believe Nigeria is making progress in the area of counterfeit and we are optimistic about the future.

Currently, Nigeria is struggling with pollution, inequality, crime and corruption but a company that is active on a global scale must be able to deal with these. We have been working on compliant scheme. It is very important that our employees understand compliance in today’s world.

Access to quality medicine

Our industry needs to make sure that we adapt our business model so that we can make medicines available at prices that can guarantee access. We need to do public private partnerships.

We need to join forces with Nigerian players to make medicines more affordable. Also, the country needs to work on supply chain, security and reliability. We need to make sure that medicines are being safely distributed to the people that need them. In some areas like neglected tropical diseases, we need to work with social responsibility programmes and donate medicines because the very poor Nigerians cannot afford even cheap medicine.

We are thinking of making drugs available at much lower prices in public health system and charge regular prices in private institutions for those that can afford it. Such programme is already in countries like Ghana.

Our plans for tackling malaria

On malaria, we are developing a technology for important diagnostic parameters in malaria. We have developed insect repellents that can be used on mosquitoes, which in turn can effectively tackle the scourge. In addition to all these things, we are very much active as well in the field of diabetes, hypertension, typhoid disorders as well as cancer.

By: Stefan Oschmann

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