… As he emerges new Gavi CEO

By Sola Ogundipe

The Health Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HEWAN) has tasked Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate to ensure that the fortunes of vaccination and immunisation  in Nigeria are improved and sustained towards preventing infectious diseases in the country.

Making the call in Lagos in a congratulatory message to Pate on his appointment as the new Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Association urged Pate, a former Minister of State for Health in Nigeria, to use his new office to support and drive vaccination and immunisation  programmes in the overall interest of Nigeria’s teeming population.

HEWAN also urged him to advocate and support policies that will increase vaccination interventions globally as a strategy to curb diseases worldwide including in the West African sub-region.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance on February 23, announced the appointment of Pate as its new CEO, to resume office officially on August 3, 2023.

In the message signed by the HEWAN President and Secretary, Chioma Obinna, and Lucy Osuizigbo, the Association commended Pate’s appointment, noting thatas ann expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases, he was a round peg in a round hole.

The Association wished Pate success in the new assignment, assuring him of the Association’s unflinching support.

Pate was appointed in May 2019, by the World Bank Group as the Global Director of Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) and Director, of the Global Financing Facility (GFF), in Washington DC.

At about the same time, he was also appointed by the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health as Julio Frenk Professor of Public Health Leadership in the Department of Global Health and Population.

Previously, he worked with the World Bank. He joined the Bank as a young professional in 2000 and worked on health issues such HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in several regions including Africa and East Asia and the Pacific.

Prior to Pate’s appointment as Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health in 2011, he had successfully served as the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).

In 2013, he joined Duke University’s Global Health Institute, where he served as a visiting professor and taught comparative health systems to postgraduate students.