By Hassan John
About 97 percent of Tuberculosis (TB) patients in Nigeria have documented HIV results, the Federal Government has said.
The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, who disclosed this in Abuja, weekend, said this is far higher than the global and African region averages of 76 and 86 percent respectively.
He lamented that only one in every four Nigerians knows about tuberculosis.
Represented by the Minister of State for Health, Mr. Ekumankama Nkama, the Minister who quoted the World Health Organisation (WHO) global TB report regretted that despite free testing and medication made available in the country, Nigeria still ranked highest among countries with child TB in the world.
Ehanire who added that the country is one of the countries in the world with a great burden on TB and resistance to TB medications emphasised the need for people coughing for more than two weeks to ensure they get tested.
“TB is a curable disease. The World TB Day is a global event and enables us to assess the progress made so far. TB is a major public health problem globally, likewise in Nigeria.
“According to WHO Global TB Report, Nigeria is ranked 6th in the world and first in Africa, it was revealed that there are 467,000 TB cases in Nigeria in 2021.
“Furthermore, it’s only 1 out of every 4 Nigerians that have knowledge about TB.”
The Minister, however, said that the federal government is committed in ensuring the end of TB in Nigeria.
“All the interventions of the Federal Government, is yielding positive results. We have been able to expand the TB facilities to 2, 038 in 2014 to over 20,000.
“I therefore encourage Nigerians to be their brothers’ keeper. Ensure that everyone around you with cough for more than two weeks to go for TB test in the nearest health facilities”, the minister said.
Similarly, the WHO Country Representative (WR) Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo who was represented by Dr. Laxmikant Chavan WHO Technical Officer noted that, Nigeria at the United Nations High Level meeting (UNHLM) on TB in 2018 made a commitment to diagnose and treat 1,109,000 TB cases and place 2,183,890 clients on TB preventive Therapy (TPT) from 2018 to 2022.
He, however, said that after the end of 2022, Nigeria is yet to demonstrate achievements of this commitment as available reports show that the country is trailing behind in all the set targets.
He noted that, TB control budgets in Nigeria continue to be drastically underfunded.
“About 69% of the TB budget in 2021 was unfunded. This is a major threat to the country’s efforts in achieving the set targets. Too many people are pushed into poverty when they contract TB due to lost income, transport costs and other expenses. 71% of the TB patients in Nigeria and their household are affected by catastrophic cost due to TB.
“WHO will continue to support Nigeria in developing and implementing guidelines, plans, framework and strategic documents to end TB epidemic in Nigeria.
“In addition, we will facilitate research to provide evidence-based interventions and innovations for finding the missing TB cases and enhancing the country’s efforts in reaching the set targets.
“We will continue to work with the programme to build capacity of senior and middle-level managers across the states on the needed knowledge and skills for improving quality of care and data analysis towards formulating evidence-based policies for enhancing programme performance at all levels.
Also, the Deputy Director, Office of HIV/ AIDS and TB USAID Nigeria, Omosalewa Oyelaran said since 2003, Nigeria remains in the top 10 countries affected by TB, with one of the lowest detection rates globally.
She said to combat this debilitating disease; USAID collaborates with the Government of Nigeria and other national and international partners to support the National Tuberculosis Program.
“Since 2003, USAID has contributed more than $250 million to TB control efforts in Nigeria.
“In 2022 alone, USAID programs helped screen over 15 million individuals for TB. USAID’s support also includes the provision of TB screening, diagnostic, treatment, and preventive services in 18 states through community and facility-based interventions, she said.
According to her:” In partnership with the Government of Nigeria, USAID’s ‘TB Accelerator’ model invested in local civil society organizations (CSOs) to increase access to quality TB prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, including multi-drug resistant TB.
“These local CSOs collaborate with the national and state TB programs to deploy, and scale, state of the art equipment and tools to improve detection of TB.
“USAID also facilitates multi-sectoral public-private partnerships to increase public awareness and advocate for domestic resources to address the TB epidemic in Nigeria. As a result, Nigeria realized a significant increase in TB case finding and treatment coverage over the past three years.
“Despite the additional challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have achieved significant results working together in partnership with GON and Global Fund.
“We commend the Government of Nigeria’s efforts to sustain the accelerated service delivery that resulted in yearly case notification increases of 160 percent between 2019 and 2022.
“However, much remains to be done if Nigeria is to meet its TB control target of ending the TB epidemic by 2035. We must continue to work together to reach all TB patients and their contacts in Nigeria.
“However, the greatest challenge is the funding gap, which is estimated to be 70 percent of the resources needed to effectively control TB. Therefore, I call on you to mobilize domestic resources to meet this funding gap through budgetary allocations, inclusion of TB services in health insurance schemes, and enhanced private sector engagement”, she said.
