The Chairperson of the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, has stressed the need for Nigeria to increase agriculture productivity using improved seedlings to make food more available at low cost in order to tackle the problem of malnutrition in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa.

He lamented that the current economic conditions are driving up the stunting levels which right now are actually a little bit higher than they were adding that the situation is worrisome considering the lasting negative impact of malnutrition especially on children age 5 you’ve been malnourished, you can’t recover.

Speaking with journalists during the Nutrivision 2024, a Pan-African Youth Dialogue on Nutrition in Abuja, Gates said there is need to ensure that children have enough protein in their diet through foods like milk and eggs adding that raising the productivity of these proteins can bring costs down.

He said, “We work to develop an understanding of why kids are malnourished, what is it that they’re missing? So we funded most of those studies. And there’s a lot now that’s understood about having enough protein in your diet.

“Foods, things like milk and eggs and so, raising the productivity of those, you bring costs down. It’s very important.

“I was in Ethiopia and the cost of eggs there has been cut by half, scaled up. And so you have these very productive chicken genetics. And so that’s very exciting to have cheaper protein.”

Gates pointed out that there is need to switch to Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation (MMS) for pregnant women, stressing that about 3 million bottles of MMS is coming in for pilot rollout in Nigeria.

He noted that considering that malnutrition starts very early in life, one of the best ways to fight it is to help mothers even before and during pregnancy adding that the foundation is investing more on nutrition with focus on helping mothers throughout pregnancy.

“Before, during antenatal visits, women were given iron and folic acid, and that’s all.But we’re showing people that it should be switched to a group of vitamins that we call MMS.

“There are 3 million bottles of that coming in for pilot rollout to show, even though it costs a tiny bit more money to do MMS, it’s very, very little in that we think the benefits to the mother and child are very significant.

“So, the malnutrition problem won’t be solved overnight.There’s a lot that can be done in food fortification. Things like vitamin A, folic acid, iodine, different food vehicles apply for different nutrients. A key thing is the nutrition of the mother, and that’s why we’ve gone.”

Gates who highlighted the effectiveness of AI in advancing healthcare delivery observed that AI is currently being used to design new vaccines, to design new drug, and there is a technique for killing mosquitoes called gene drive which can be deployed to reduce mosquito population.

He noted that countries with great shortage of doctors like Nigeria will benefit the most from the AI as people will be able to get medical advice in their native languages.

Gates disclosed that the foundation is working with partners to make sure that African languages, including Nigerian languages, have good data sets so that the accuracy is not much different than you see with English.

He said, “We use AI to design new vaccines, to design new drug, we have a technique for killing mosquitoes called gene drive.

“That will probably be a necessary part where you reduce mosquito populations or modify the mosquito to not be able to carry the malaria parasite.

“So, you know, all our work gets accelerated by those new tools. You know, you discover drugs faster. In a sense, the countries with great shortage of doctors benefit the most because you’ll be able to get medical advice in your native language, in your village, including, you know, whatever data you make available.

“So it’ll be very individualized. But, you know, that stuff will be piloted in the next two or three years. If we go at full speed in five or six years, we’ll be deployed at scale globally.

“Eventually, you know, through your cell phone, you’ll be able to ask questions and get medical advice. You know, as you’ve seen, AI now works in the voice realm as well as it does in the text realm.”