Abuja (Min. of Health) – The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, has intimated the global community with efforts made by the Nigerian Government to end TB in the country, particularly within the last few years.
In his speech at the on-going 32nd STOP TB Partnership Board meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, Ehanire said that the Nigerian Government having increased the number of health care facilities by 30% has extended TB services to an additional 5,000 of these health facilities, in the quest to ensure broader access to TB Services.
He informed that the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s approved Rapid Diagnostic tools have been adopted as primary diagnostic tools for TB, with the GeneXpert MTB/RIF services currently provided in 398 health facilities. “Our target is to scale this up to even more facilities and Local Government Areas” the Minister assured.
Also, to address the burden of Drug Resistant TB (DR-TB), the Minister explained that Nigeria has adopted the recent WHO DR-TB treatment guidelines and decentralised services to communities to ensure prompt initiation and better adherence to treatment, when diagnosis is made.
Talking on Private sector engagement in this regards, the Minister mentioned that the Private sector is involved in providing GeneXpert and other TB services, which has yielded excellent results as private operators rose to be among the highest yielding diagnostic centres in the country, contributing about 13% of TB case notifications nationwide.
“We are scaling up this engagement as part of our operational plans and hope to also actively engage the private sector in mobilizing resources for TB control efforts” Ehanire added.
Despite these achievements, the Minister stated that Nigeria’s TB control efforts have some challenges notably among which are: Overall low rate of case finding, with a country case notification of only 106,533 in 2018 and 24% of estimated 429,000 in-country TB infections, amongst others.
However, the Minister maintained that finding missing TB cases remains a priority for the Nigerian Government adding that the Federal Ministry of Health and Partners are committed to mobilising domestic and international resources to execute innovative strategies to finding missing TB cases.
Other notable efforts to draw attention to TB and mobilise domestic resources for its control in Nigeria, include: Engagement of wife of the President of Nigeria as “TB Ambassador”, to stimulate political commitment at Federal and State levels with wives of State governors; Establishment of a well-functioning Nigerian Stop TB Partnership Board to drive the resource mobilization agenda for TB; Moving forward in line with the National Action Plan for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and plans to translate UNHLM commitment on TB to action, etc.
The Minister further emphasised that the Government of President Muhammadu Buhari places premium on human capital development, as such, “If we do not step up the fight and mobilise additional resources for TB, it means we have chosen a path of under-development, but this cannot be the case”
Enefaa Bob-Manuel
Head, Media and Public Relations
