World Health Organisation (WHO) has lamented that Tuberculosis (TB) kills at least one person in every five minutes in Nigeria as medical experts called on governments at all levels to increase investment in Tuberculosis (TB) to achieve Nigeria’s goal of eradicating the disease by 2030.
Experts also highlighted the persistently low awareness levels, particularly in rural areas, which they noted that poses a significant threat to efforts aimed at addressing Tuberculosis
Speaking at a pre-world TB day press conference on Tuesday in Abuja, the National Programme Officer for TB, World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Amos Omoniyi, said TB remains a killer disease globally, with millions of deaths recorded annually.
Omoniyi while reeling out data said, in 2022, Africa region reported approximately 2.4 million cases of TB, with Nigeria contributing 479,000 cases (19 per cent).
He disclosed that out of the 424,000 TB-related deaths in Africa same year, no fewer than 97,900 (23 per cent) occurred in Nigeria.
He said:
“It is very sad and painful that people still die from TB every day despite being a curable and preventable disease,” he said.
Omoniyi also said that despite accounting for high burden of the disease, Nigeria Africa’s most populous nation still has 70 per cent funding gap in TB.
“This disease is preventable and can be eradicated if government at all levels can invest more into tackling TB.”
Also, the Executive Director of KNCV TB Foundation Nigeria, Dr Bethrand Odume, while speaking on the theme ahead of the 2024 World Tuberculosis Day (WTBD), said, there is an urgent need to come together and ramp up the fight against TB to achieve commitments to end the disease by 2030.
“This is a continuation of last year’s World TB Day theme which brings attention to TB and our collective power to achieve the 2023 UN High-Level Meeting on TB Political Declaration targets, which will put the world on course to end TB by 2030″.
“It brings hope and builds on the amazing work done in 2023 by many TB High Burden Countries and TB Champions around the world who continue to make incredible strides to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic by increasing access to TB treatment and prevention.”
“It also identifies progress made in research and development including many new TB diagnosis tools, shorter, more efficient treatment and preventive regimens as well as several vaccines in phase 3 clinical trials.”
“The time to accelerate all efforts towards ending TB is now more than ever before. We all need to sustain the progress we have made in recent years in finding missing TB cases, by scaling up key proven strategies while sustaining advocacy efforts to improve funding from the government and the private sector.”
“KNCV is working with the NTBLPC and state TB programme in the 14 supported states to improve TB case detection in Nigeria under the USAID- supported TB LONDON project,” he added.
Health: Tuberculosis Kills One Every Five Minutes Minutes In Nigeria
