The Federal Government has warned that untreated drug-resistant tuberculosis patients pose great danger to all Nigerians, as they will continuously spread the disease.
Speaking during the ministerial Press Briefing to commemorate the 2022 World TB Day, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said one of the major challenges affecting the fight against TB in the country has been low notification of child TB cases.
According to the minister, even though the country notified highest number of child TB cases of 12,977 in 2021, the child TB proportion amongst the overall TB notification for the same year was six per cent, far lower than the WHO benchmark of 12 per cent.
According to Ehanire, the deveopment implies a high proportion of missing child TB cases in Nigeria.
He said, “Only 2,197 (74%) of diagnosed DR-TB patients were enrolled on treatment in 2021. This is not encouraging as it is a far cry from our target of 100% enrolment for diagnosed DR-TB patients. These untreated DR-TB patients constitute a time bomb as they continuously spread DR-TB in our communities”.
In its goodwill message, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative, Walter Kazali Malombo, called on government at all levels to mobilize additional domestic financial support for TB control.
According to the global health body, while national strategic plans and accompanying budgets for tuberculosis have grown in ambition, mobilization of funding has not kept the pace as in 2020 while the global spending on TB services fell to five point $3billion and funding for research was $901million.
Lamenting that African governments contribute only 22 per cent of the resources required to deliver adequate TB services, with 44 percent going unfunded, the WHO counted South Africa and Zambia as the best examples of high TB burden countries that have steadily increased domestic funding specifically allocated for TB.
Molumbo commended the Health Minister for facilitating the inclusion of TB interventions in state health insurance schemes towards increasing counterpart budgetary allocation for current Global Fund grant.
He said, “The Hon Minister may therefore consider facilitating all states to include TB in their health insurance schemes as they become operational.
“WHO will continue to support towards keeping TB control strategies up to date, strengthening partnerships, fostering innovation, finding missing cases and building capacity for all facets of TB control”.
USAID, represented by Dr. Chukwuma Anyaike, the National Coordinator of the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme lamented that Nigeria has witnessed a significant increase in case finding and treatment coverage in the past two years, in spite of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
USAID however commends the Government of Nigeria’s efforts in increasing TB case detection from more than 100,000 in 2018 to more than 200,000 in 2021.
The global body added that much still remains to be done if Nigeria is to meet its TB control targets.
It said, “Since 2003, Nigeria has remained in the top 10 countries affected by TB, with one of the lowest detection rates globally. We must continue to work together to reach all TB patients and their contacts in the country.
“This year’s World TB Day with a theme titled, “Invest to End TB, Saves Lives” is a call to action that resonates with the most critical needs of Nigeria’s National TB Programme. The TB programme has shown – based on recent results – that it can detect and treat TB cases. However, the programme currently has a funding gap of 70 percent.
‘’It is necessary to mobilize domestic resources to fill this gap through budgetary allocation and innovations in health insurance. USAID is delighted to observe the increase in state funding allocations to address the TB epidemic in Lagos, Osun, Kano, Kaduna, and Plateau states. Similarly, we commend the inclusion of TB in state health insurance schemes in Lagos and Osun states’’.
