Reps to Purchase 360 tuberculosis testing machines to ease TB burden in Nigeria

The Chairman House Committee on tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria, Abubakar Sarki Dajiru has pledge his commitment to ensure the purchased of 360 tuberculosis testing machine by all members of the house of representatives in Nigeria.

Hon. Dahiru disclose this in Abuja on Tuesday at a press briefing in commemoration of the 2020 World tuberculosis day themed; “its time to end TB in Nigeria.

However, Dahiru noted that members of the house are passionate about ending the menace of tuberculosis and will contribute in their various constituencies with the tuberculosis testing machines.

“In the coming week, you will see debate on tuberculosis because of the serious attachment we have for the health sector. And after this debate, I assure you that each member will buy the tuberculosis testing machines”.

The Chairman while speaking on the poor budget release and poor funding of the health sector, blamed the budget office for not releasing enough money to the health sector to tackle various challenges.

However, he said that the house was working assiduously to ensure adequate release of funds budgeted for the health sector.

Also speaking at the event, the Country Director KNVC, and Chairman, planing committee,  World Tuberculosis Day 2020, Dr. Berthrand Odume said the event which slogan is: ‘check that cough, time no dey’, was meant to raise public awareness about the devastating social, economic and health impact of tuberculosis (TB).

“Despite significant progress over the last decades, TB remains
the world’s deadliest infectious killer and require acceleration of efforts to end the TB epidemic globally and in Nigeria. World TB Day 2020 is a continuation of our joint efforts to keep TB high on the global and national agenda.

“Each day, nearly 4500 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease. Global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 58 million lives since the year 2000 and reduced the TB mortality rate by 42%. However, the emergence of drug-resistant TB poses a major health threat and could put at risk the gains made in efforts to End TB”, he said.

“In 2018, about 1.4 million people globally died of TB-related causes including over 205,000 children. And over 95% of TB deaths occurs in low and middle-income countries especially Africa.

“Nigeria is one of the countries with the high burden of disease globally. According to the 2018 Global TB Report, Nigeria is among the 30 high burden countries for TB, TB/HIV and MDR-TB. It ranked 6th among the 30 high TB burden countries and 1st in Africa. TB kills 18 Nigerians every hour.

“Also, forty-nine (49) Nigerians develop active TB, seven (6) of which are children, every hour. One of the major challenge of TB
response in Nigeria is attributed to low TB case findings both in adult and children. This is as a result of low TB treatment coverage and poor knowledge about TB that influence the health seeking behaviour of people.”

Dr. Odume recalled that in the quest of accelerating TB response in countries to reach targets, heads of states including President Muhammadu Buhari, came together and made strong commitments to end TB at the first-ever UN High Level Meeting in
September 2018.

He hereby called on major stakeholders to come together and collaboratively work towards ending the TB epidemic for a TB free Nigeria.

“It is our resolve to continue to bring TB on the political agenda and build a multi-stakeholder partnership to address the
socio-economic impact of the disease. We call on our political leaders to invest more on TB control, the civil society to
continue to call for accountability and the media to always help in creating the needed awareness. It is a call to action to
scale up; research, funding, human rights and accountability to end TB in Nigeria.”