By Chimezie Godfrey
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouq has said that public sensitization is key to addressing humanitarian issues.
The Minister stated this while receiving a delegation from the Sanofi Pasteur, led by Dina Aboueluwafa.
She said sensitizing the general public, especially the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the camps on the prevention and treatment of diseases is very important.
Farouq expressed the readiness of the Ministry to partner with Sanofi Pasteur in addressing health issues in the camp like cholera, meningitis and other diseases.
“Your partnership with us is very key because health is wealth, unless we have healthy people, we cannot be talking of their productivity or how they could help themselves.
“The Ministry is in need of partnership in so many areas such as capacity building for staff in the field and other health care services to address health issues in the camps” she noted.
Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation, Dina Aboueluwafa said Sanofi Pasteur has been in Africa for over 50 years and in Nigeria since 1999, providing healthcare services.
She said the delegation was in the Ministry to explore areas of collaboration in health care needs for communities where the Ministry operates.
“We are committed to Nigeria in the long term with over 95% of staff Nigerians. In November, 2019, we signed a contract manufacturing agreement with Meyer and Berger as a way of demonstrating our commitment to Nigerian issue,”Aboueluwafa said.
She pointed out that the best way to manage disaster is to prevent disaster.
“There is need to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to disaster management.
“We are proposing that Sanofi Pasteur would support the Ministry in been proactive to humanitarian responses towards disasters and emergencies” she added.
Aboueluwafa said Sanofi Pasteur would support the Ministry in public awareness campaign, capacity building for health care providers and professionals, vaccinations of people in the camps against seasonal outbreaks in some Northern parts of the country for meningitis as well as logistics.
She said being proactive would be highly appreciated by the Nigerian people because preventing disaster is much better than managing it.
