Bill Gates applauds Kano on health care coverage

Co – chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Mr. Bill Gates, has appreciated the success stories emanating from Kano state in terms of improvement in coverage across Primary Health Care indicators.

“Kano’s coverage for Penta 3 has improved from 19% in 2013 to 46% in the year 2018 but more needs to be done in terms of strengthening the Primary Health care system”, he said.

Gates was speaking over the weekend during a video conference involving Kano state governor Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, Chairman of Dangote Foundation, Aliko Dangote and other stakeholders, on Kano State Health System Strengthening Program Review.

He encouraged the state government to maintain sufficient and timely funding as well as better coordination of the anti-Polio program.

On his part, the chairman of Dangote Foundation Aliko Dangote, expressed satisfaction with the improvement recorded by the state government regarding data quality but stressed the need for the state health team “to work towards developing a robust data quality improvement plan before the end of the year”.

“This is targeted towards reducing the discrepancy administrative and survey data for all key health indices”, he maintained.

In his remarks, Gov. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said, “despite the current challenges in the health system, we have continued putting the backbone structures which ensures that the ongoing MOU partnership is on course to deliver the expected results across various workstreams within the State Primary Health Care Management Board, Hospitals Services Management Board and Drugs and Medical Consumables Supply Agency”.

“Since the last review, we have made remarkable progress beyond few programmatic areas of focus to additional scope in doing more around strengthening 2-way hospital referrals, maternal health and malaria program coordination”, the governor stressed.

According to him, “this is in addition to the already ongoing work of strengthening the existing areas of focus and consolidating gains made in operating our coordination platforms and the cross-agency linkage between the various MDAs under the State Ministry of Health”.

The Emir of Rano, Alh. Tafida Abubakar Ila, who spoke on behalf of Kano State Emirate Council, promised to use the influence of the traditional leadership to ensure deeper oversight of health program activities at the grassroots level.

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