FG to ban public officials from overseas medical trips –Minister

Posted by admin Latest Politics Friday, April 13th, 2012

The Minister for Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu has said that the federal government will soon wield the big stick against public officers travelling abroad for medical attention. He, however, said such trip will only be allowed if there is a proven fact that the attention the public officer seeks is not available in Nigeria either in form of manpower or facilities.

Prof. Chukwu also said that the move excludes private citizens who want to travel abroad on their personal bill, adding that such borders on citizens personal rights. He also promised Nigerians that the war against malaria would soon be won, at least to a large extent. Chukwu gave the assurance yesterday in Abuja while interacting with the media at The Pilot Newspapers Leadership Forum.

He raised the hope of the nation that development of vaccines to reduce malaria bouts in sufferers by 50 per cent will soon be a dream come true.
He said the vaccine is being developed by the Federal Government in partnership with the GSK Pharmaceutical group.

According to him, when the vaccine is out, people who take it would have their malaria occurrence reduced by half. “To develop vaccine takes time and the target of the malaria vaccine is to make sure that a person who suffers six bouts of malaria in a year will have the occurrence reduced to three and we are also working hard to ensure other means of malaria eradication is achieved in the nation.”

Another aspect of the anti-malaria war he said the Federal Government has been championing is the procurement of treated mosquito nets. He noted that in the past few years, the ministry has distributed over 50 million treated nets to Nigerians, and has a target of 76 million nets for the people.
He spoke so highly of the victory the health sector has achieved in the fight against polio and boasted that the ailment would soon be consigned to history.
He said government has spent a princely sum of N4.7 billion in the fight against poliomyelitis in recent years.
The result of the special attention, he noted has led to the drastic drop in the recorded cases of polio nationwide, with just eight states recoding polio cases in the past two years.

“In 2010 for instance, there were just 20 polio cases nationwide and 62 the following year due to some gap in the administration of drugs whereas in the past two years only eight states of the federation have reported polio cases.”
He was upbeat in his assurance that Nigeria will soon record zero incident of polio with the integrated efforts of the 36 states governors who have taken the challenge of immunizing children as a project of the Governors’ Forum.
Chukwu praised the governors for what he called their noble efforts in fighting the scourge and said if Nigerians would offer such integrative approach to disease eradication, the targeted MDG goal for the healthcare in 2015 would be realizable.

-Sun

wp_posts