Bauchi State Donates Drugs Worth N7.48 Billion Naira To 14 States
By Idris Khalid
Bauchi State Government under the able leadership Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed has donated 30,000 vials of Daptomycin injection worth $14.4 million (N7.48 billion) to 14 states of the federation.
According to the statement signed by Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Projects Monitoring, Musa Azare, the donation was made out of the 54,000 vials the state received from a United States based donor agency, Map International.
Our reporter recall that Bauchi had on 29 July received the donation of the antibiotic drug from the donor as part of its humanitarian support to the state.
The drugs, the donor said, were freely air freighted from Atlanta, USA by Universal Parcel Service (UPS) through the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano as their corporate social responsibility (CSR) to Bauchi state.
Azare explained that Bauchi was identified by Map International, USA for the in-kind donation as a result of Governor Bala Mohammed’s shared morale and passion to impact positively on humanity.
“This is the first time any state in Nigeria receives such a huge cache of drugs as donation from a foreign donor agency”, Azare stated.
He said that the donation to some select states in the country by Bauchi state government, was the sole initiative of Senator Bala Mohammed in order to share the humanitarian gesture Bauchi got from the donor with fellow Nigerians.
Azare gave the breakdown of the donations to other states in the federation with Kano receiving the highest of 5,000 vials worth $2.40 million (N1,248,000,000), followed by the FCT, Borno and Kaduna states with each got 3,000 vials worth $1.44 million (N748,800,000).
Alhaji Musa Azare said similarly that Gombe, Katsina, Yobe, Jigawa, Taraba and Adamawa states received 2,000 vials each worth $960,000 or equivalent to N499,200,000, for each State.
In the donation build up to other states include Plateau, Nassarawa, Benue and Zamfara states that each received 1,000 vials worth $480,000 or equivalent to N249,600,000).
Azare explained that Daptomycin is a lipopeptide antibiotic used in the treatment of systemic and life-threatening infections caused by Gram-positive organisms, its distinct mechanism of action makes it useful in treating infections caused by multiple drug-resistant bacteria.
