Nigeria has reaffirmed its commitment to end Tuberculosis by 2030.
Minister of State for Health, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora,said at the 2021 World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, with theme:’The Clock is Ticking” that President Muhammadu Buhari has stepped up Nigeria’s TB response in line with the commitment made by world leaders at the United Nations High-Level Meeting (UN-HLM) in 2018.
World leaders had on September 24, 2018, committed to promote access to affordable medicines, including generics, and to provide 40 million people access to diagnosis and treatment by 2022.
According to the Minister, “following that commitment, we are implementing a plan that translates the commitment into action and we were able to achieve 73 per cent of our UN-HLM TB case finding target for 2019.
“Efforts have led to steady increase in our annual TB case notification in the last four years with the country recording the highest-ever TB case notification of 120,266 TB cases in 2019; a 13 per cent rise from 2018.
“A key challenge to our control effort has been the slow pace of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for TB services.
”TB DOTS services are only available in 31 per cent of health facilities. The current coverage of GeneXpert machines, the first-line test for TB diagnosis, is barely 41 per cent 317 out of 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs).”
In her goodwill message, First Lady Aisha Buhari, urged government at all levels, relevant stakeholders to double their efforts to ensure TB was eradicated from the country.
In her remarks, USAID Acting Mission Director, Dr Katie Donohoe reiterated commitment to support Nigeria get control of TB.