Ahead of the 2024 World Tuberculosis Day (WTBD), health experts have called on governments at all levels to increase investment in Tuberculosis (TB) to achieve Nigeria’s goal of eradicating the disease by 2030.
The experts, who spoke at a pre-world TB day press conference in Abuja on Tuesday highlighted that the persistently low awareness levels, particularly in rural areas, pose a significant threat to efforts aimed at addressing the deadly disease.
Speaking at the event, Dr Amos Omoniyi, the National Programme Officer for TB, World Health Organization (WHO) said TB remains a killer disease globally, with millions of deaths recorded annually.
Dr Omoniyi said in 2022, Africa region reported approximately 2.4 million cases of TB, with Nigeria contributing 479,000 cases (19 per cent).
He highlighted that out of the 424,000 TB-related deaths in Africa same year, 97,900 (23 per cent) occurred in Nigeria.
He said in Nigeria, one person dies of TB every five minutes despite being a curable disease.
“It is very sad and painful that people still die from TB every day despite being a curable and preventable disease,” he said.
Dr Omoniyi noted 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.”
Tuberculosis, a killer disease
Tuberculosis, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, primarily targets the lungs and ranks as the leading infectious cause of death globally, featuring prominently among the top 10 causes of mortality worldwide.
The disease spreads through airborne transmission, with individuals contracting it when inhaling TB germs released into the air through the coughing, sneezing, or spitting of infected individuals.
Only a minimal exposure to these germs is required for infection to occur.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation ranks sixth amongst 30 countries globally with the highest burden of the disease.
World TB day
World TB Day is marked on March 24 every year to create awareness about the impact of the disease.
The theme of the 2024 WTBD is “Yes, we can end TB” and Nigeria’s slogan is “No gree for TB, check am o.”
The Executive Director of KNCV TB Foundation Nigeria, Dr Bethrand Odume, said the theme conveys the urgent need to come together and ramp up the fight against TB to achieve commitments to end the disease by 2030.
Dr Odume said 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,” he said.
He mentioned that the theme focuses on the increased engagement of those affected by TB, communities, and civil society who are leading the movement towards ending this disease.
He said 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.
Dr Odume said 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,” he said.
He said 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.