THE National Tuberculosis Burulli Ulcer and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCP) and Breakthrough Action Nigeria said their new innovative approach to Tuberculosis case finding would reduce mortality.

Dr Joseph Edor, Senior programme Officer II, TB Breakthrough Action Nigeria, made this known at a media workshop in Akwanga on Wednesday.

Edor said Breakthrough Action was supporting NTBLCP with a Social and Behavioural change approach to improving TB case finding.

He said that NTBLCP with the NGO are employing the `Human Cantred Design’ as some innovative ways of increasing TB case finding in the country.

“Human centred design is an approach that tries to look at how we could understand the problem from the users’ perspective.

“In addition, it is a mindset and a process.

“So, we talk to the patient, TB stakeholders and the donors as well,’’ he said.

Edor explained that The Breakthrough Action Nigeria is a USAID funded project.

According to him, the innovation is a process and started from the intent phase where the NGO, USAID and NTBLCP agreed on the vision of the programme with a design question.

“How might we increase TB case detection in Nigeria,” Edor asked the Human Centred Design process of improving TB case finding in Nigeria was in phases; the intent, discovery, design and test phase.

“At the discovery phase, we talk with users at different levels, experts, and programme designers to help us understand the problem and gain insights in order to design the appropriate programme and approach.

“The next phase after discovery phase was the design and test phase, during which we generated several ideas and developed prototypes that were immediately tested at the communities with NTBLCP.

“We also obtained feedbacks from the beneficiaries at the community level and effect some changes in the ideas generated before arriving at the 5 interventions,’’ he said.

Edor said the innovative interventions are at the feasibility stage now.

He said that the feasibility stage was designed to help to further understand the strength or weakness in the interventions that could be addressed before the interventions are recommended for scale up at the national level.

He said that the discovery stage took place in Lagos, Kano, Rivers and Enugu States.

Edor added that the design and test stage took place in Lagos, Kano, Enugu and part of Nasarawa States.

“Because the programme is at the feasibility phase, it will pilot in Kano and Lagos States because of the population and TB prevalence in the states.

“Our goal is to get to a level where these interventions can be scale-up nationally,’’ he said.

Edor lamented the low coverage on TB awareness and appeal to key stakeholders to support in improving funding for TB programmes at all levels.

According to him, a lot of activities in the fight to end TB are donor funded, although federal government is making efforts to increase the funding.

“Media and other stakeholders need to support the National TB Programme to reduce stigma and discrimination on people infected by TB, if these happen it will go a long way for TB Programme to reach its goals,’’ he said.

Besides, Edor said that the media training was part of the organisation’s support to the advocacy communication and social mobilisation sub-committee of NTBLCP.

He added that the training was to build the capacity of the media personnel on how social behaviour change occurs, with the ultimate aims of retooling their production and writing style.

Earlier, the National Coordinator, NTBLCP, Dr Adebola Lawason, said there was a need for a pool of media caucus that would be reporting on TB all year round.

Lawason, represented by Mrs Omolola Shofowora, said the practice in the past was that, they only mobilise media during the world TB day thereafter everything dies down, no reports on TB again.

She noted that this leads to low awareness on the disease thereby causing few Nigerians to demand for the services from NTBLCP thus low TB treatment coverage.

“We need the attention of the media to focus more on TB toward improving health seeking habits of Nigerians, and removing myth and misconception about TB to overcome these challenges,’’ she said. (NAN)

– Feb. 13, 2019 @ 12:29 GMT |