Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Minister of Finance and Chairman, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, GAVI, has urged the Federal Government to improve on immunisation coverage.
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Umuahia on Thursday.
While commending the Federal Government for efforts made so far, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala urged government to work harder to attain the average target set for Africa.
She said: “We like Nigeria to improve the immunisation coverage. We were initially at 33 per cent.
“Now they have worked hard. We are at 50 per cent now but we need to work harder to get us to the average for Africa.”
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala described GAVI as the largest and 10-billion dollar organisation in the world, taking care of vaccination and immunisation of children all over the developing world.
According to her, the organisation has so far immunised more than 760 million children and saved more than 13 million lives.
“Nigeria is one of the key countries where GAVI is engaged and we are very happy to be here.
“We have a very large programme for Nigeria and it is all grant and not a loan,” the former Managing Director of the World Bank Group said.
NAN
