Nigeria accounts for 4.6 percent (455,400) cases of global Tuberculosis (TB) burden, and the highest in Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Regional Director of WHO, Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo, disclosed this at the 2021 National Conference on Tuberculosis with communities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In its 2021 report, the world health body said that an estimated 9.9 million people developed TB in 2020.
Mulombo said there was a large global drop in the number of people newly diagnosed with TB, from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million people in 2020.
He said the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the progress made towards ending the TB epidemic in the previous years and urged Nigerian authorities to redouble efforts at checking the spread of tuberculosis infection in the country.
The WHO director said a total of 16 countries accounted for 93 percent of this reduction but Nigeria was not among these countries.
“Nigeria was rather among the few countries that recorded an increase in TB notification with the notification increasing by 15 percent in 2020,” Mulombo said.
“However, about 70 percent of the estimated TB cases in the country in 2020 were not detected despite the increase in TB notification, this undetected TB case continues to fuel the spread of the disease in the community.”
Molumbo said WHO would support the National TB programme at all levels in the development of guidelines, adoption of new strategies, regimen, and interventions, in addition to building capacities and enhancing data analysis and use for optimizing performance.
“We will also support the country in the implementation of the multi-sectoral approach towards ending the TB epidemic in Nigeria,” he said.
Minister of Health Minister of Health Dr. Osagie Ehanire said the COVID-19 brought 2020 global case finding levels back to 2012 level, “with an 18 percent 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.”
