Africa Loses $2.4trn Annually To Medical Tourism – AfDB – Independent Newspaper Nigeria

 Al least $2.4 trillion is being lost annually in terms of annual Gross Domestic Product, GDP, to seeking medical care abroad. From this amount, Nigeria loses $1billion monthly.

The Head, African Develop­ment Bank, AfDB, Mission to Nigeria, Mr. Babatunde Omi­lani, disclosed this when he led a delegation on a courtesy visit to Lagos State Governor, Mr. Ba­bajide Sanwo-Olu, at the Lagos House, Marina, at the weekend.

AfDP, however, assured San­wo-Olu of its readiness to assist develop the state to the 21st-cen­tury economy, by developing the state health sector, as well as help Nigeria to save the $1billion that Nigeria was losing monthly by not banning medical tourism.

Omilani explained that the delegation had been in Lagos State in the last 10 days to study the state’s health sector, having visited all the state medical fa­cilities to know their challenges.

According to him, “Our rea­son for being here is very simple; we are here to contribute to your work in transforming Lagos into a 21st century economy.

“We are here to support your leadership as the executive gov­ernor, and what you are doing in the executive sector, to really transform the health sector of Lagos State and make it a good economy in terms of boosting the GDP of the state.

“Fortunately for us, our strat­egy at the bank on health aligns well with what you are doing.

“I will also like to mention that we have been here for 10 days. We are supposed to be at the UN General Assembly to participate in New York. But, we decided to come to Lagos State, and really participate in what you are doing and support you, especially in terms of provid­ing technical assistance also in terms of concessional financing that can help you fill some of the funding gap you might be facing in addressing the health of La­gosians.

“Health is crucial because health can actually double the economic productivity of any economy.

“We have done serious analy­sis with the World Health Organi­sation, where we realised that Af­rica is losing 2.4 trillion dollars annually in terms of annual GDP as a result of lack of investment in health.

“We have also seen that our nominal GDP at about 2.6 trillion dollars a year means that we can actually double our economic productivity.”