Nigerian First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari and Global Tuberculosis Ambassador, has urged TB stakeholders to work together to eliminate the disease in Nigeria.
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She made the call at the National TB Conference 2021, holding in Abuja.
She said that despite TB being curable, Nigeria still loses citizens to it.
Mrs Buhari also noted that with the help of governor’s wives, more awareness are being created on TB, particularly in the rural areas.
“These strategies are very important because we need to maintain a strong focus and attention towards fighting TB, the most infectious killer disease in the world”. Mrs. Buhari said.
She particularly commended health workers for always responding to TB cases while giving kudos to ministry of health for stepping up response to TB.
She added that through the anti stigma programme more people are coming forward to report TB cases and access treatments, which will boost response.
The Nigerian minister of health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said that TB is one of the older infectious diseases that the world including Nigeria have resolved to eliminate.
He noted that the advent of COVID19 pandemic and its control measures impacted many aspects of human endeavor, including Health services, and in some cases reversed gains made over the years in aspects of health programmes that affected TB control.
“The pandemic brought 2020 global case finding levels back to 2012 level, with an 18% reduction in the number of patients diagnosed with TB dropping from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020, thus setting global case finding efforts back by 8 years”. Dr Ehanire said.
The minister said that it was expected that at the end of the three-day conference, enough evidence would have been gathered and new knowledge generated to help the Global TB control efforts reverse the negative impact of the pandemic and other diseases on TB control efforts.
Dr. Ehanire noted that Nigeria recorded a 30% reduction in GeneXpert testing in the first week of the lockdown, the number of notified TB cases also dropped by 17% from 33,119 TB cases in Q1, 2020 to 27,353 in Q2,2020.
“This necessitated the conceptualization and implementation of innovative interventions to ensure program sustainability and mitigate impact on TB control efforts, the implementation of which resulted in an eventual 15% increase across the country, in the number of TB cases notified from 120,266 TB cases in 2019 to 138,591 TB cases in 2020, making us one of the few countries that recorded increased in TB notification in 2020, despite the pandemic. Key among the interventions was a strategic engagement of the private sector, introduction of targeted, data driven community TB case finding activities, integration of TB case finding in COVID-19 outreaches, active TB and integrated TB/COVID-19 case finding activities in health facilities among others. Some of these helpful practices in TB case finding will be shared during this conference, so I urge participants to attend all the sessions“. He urged.
He also said that 9 months into this year 2021, Nigeria has already surpassed the total number of TB cases notified in all of 2020 by about 7%, and for the first time, Nigeria could be notifying up to 200,000 TB cases by the end of 2021.
“I like to here commend all who are making this happen, including our partners WHO, Global Fund, USAID and other USG agencies and their partners, KNCV, Stop TB partnership, the TB network, community based organizations and health workers who are the foot soldiers, for their hard work in the fight to end TB in Nigeria”. Dr. Ehanire said.
He pointed out that Nigeria still has a long way to go to reach the targets for ending the TB epidemic, and that most of our TB cases are yet undetected.
“We are not as close as we would like to the United Nations High Level Meeting (UNHLM) target on TB case finding, TB Preventive Treatment (TPT) and other TB thematic areas set to be achieved by 2022 and the milestones for ending TB in Nigeria. We must therefore work with our partners to accelerate and scale up our current efforts significantly, mobilize needed domestic and international resources for implementing the National TB strategic Plan 2021-2025, to end the TB epidemic in Nigeria.
We must therefore work with our partners to accelerate and scale up our current efforts significantly, mobilize needed domestic and international resources for implementing the National TB strategic Plan 2021-2025, to end the TB epidemic in Nigeria. We look forward to the outcomes and reports of this conference, which we believe will help us further step up TB control efforts“. Dr Ehanire added.
The Acting Board Chairman, Stop TB Partnership Nigeria, Dr. Ayodele Awe, said that the National TB Conference 2021, aims to galvanise action towards ending TB in Nigeria and across the world.
He said that participants at the three day conference would deliberate on the way forward for TB elimination.
The World Health Organization’s Country, KNCV TB Foundation Nigeria, NCDC, the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme and other TB partners in Nigeria reaffirmed their commitment to ending TB in Nigeria.
The theme for this year conference is “sustaining a resilient TB response in Nigeria: Addressing the impact of COVID19 and other diseases”.
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