Health
THE National Tuberculosis Leprosy Control Programme, NTBLCP, and the Federal Ministry of Health will collaborate with the media to improve awareness.
The collaboration would generate Tuberculosis, TB, demand across the states.
A zoom cloud meeting, which was held on April 20 had in attendance seven states: Anambra, Kogi, Borno, Jigawa, Yobe, Sokoto and Kaduna.
Itohowo Uko, Director and Head, Advocacy Commendation and Social Mobilisation, National TB Control Unit, Abuja said the essence of the meeting was to brainstorm on how to improve TB awareness.
She noted that stigmatisation and discrimination has made TB patients to hide.
Uko emphasised that unless they have them and put them on treatment, they will not have the transmission.
She urged the media as the watchdog of the society to encourage the state governments, especially the governor’s wives, who are the face of TB in those states to speak up for increased budgetary allocation for TB.
The director said that Tuberculosis otherwise known as TB is an air-borne infectious disease caused by a bacterium known as `Mycobacterium’ tuberculosis that affects mainly the lungs and any other parts of the body.
She said that TB was one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide.
According to the 2020 WHO Global TB Report, Nigeria was ranked 1st in Africa and 6th globally among the 30 high TB burden countries.
“Nigeria is also one of the countries with the triple burden of TB, HIV associated TB and Multi Drug Resistant TB (MDR-TB).’’
She said that Nigeria was classified among the 14 countries with high burden of TB, explaining that one case of untreated pulmonary TB could affect 10 to 15 persons in one year.
“Estimates from WHO Global Report 2020 suggest that TB kills 18 Nigerians every hour, 47 Nigerians develop active TB every hour, 7 percent which are children.
According to the 2020 report, no fewer than 150,000 Nigerians are estimated to have died from TB in 2019, noting that knowledge of TB transmission, symptoms and prevention is still low.
Uko said that TB spreads through the air when a person with TB of the lungs coughs, sneezes, sings or talks.
TB common symptoms include cough for two or more weeks, loss of weight when one was not trying to lose weight, sweating at nights when others close by are not sweating as well as low fever.
The director explained that persistent coughing for two or more weeks could be TB and that diagnosis, treatment is free of charge in all government facilities and the DR-TB treatment centres nationwide.
She said that TB was curable and the patient was not infectious after a few weeks of treatment, noting that it was completely curable if detected and treated early.
She emphasised an urgent need to increase early TB case finding, notification and treatment, given a toll-free helpline 3340 in case one needs their services.
Uko said that COVID-19 pandemic had affected TB services, because of the lockdown; there was significant decline to TB tests and care, noting that the fear of COVID-19 and the possibility of isolation resulted in reduction in hospital attendance.
She urged the media to continue to support the TB sensitisation process beyond the World TB Day in the state, noting that information on COVID-19 had saturated all media platforms with little or no information about TB, which was a leading cause of deaths in Nigeria.
According to her, the theme for 2021 World TB Day the clock is ticking…It is time to end TB in Nigeria.
“The world is running out of time to act on the commitments to end TB agreed on by global leaders,’’ she said.
– Apr.24, 2021 @ 14:33 GMT |
Tags: National Tuberculosis/Leprosy Control Programme to partner Media for improved awareness
