World Tuberculosis Day: WHO, Experts Seek High-level Leadership Action To End Scourge
• One Person Dies Of TB Every Five Minute In Nigeria • $13b Needed Yearly For Prevention, Dignosis — WHO
AS the world marks the World Tuberculosis (TB) Day today, the disease has remained the leading infectious killer disease in the world and among the top 10 causes of death worldwide. Meanwhile,142yearsafterthe cause was discovered, the whole world is still battling with the scourge of TB, as it is still ravaging and sending many into extinction.
Despite being both preventableandcurable,about1.9billion people, representing one-quarter of the world’s population, are infected with
TB, live with the causative organism, in a dormant/inactive state.
Every year, it is estimated that 10 million people develop activetbdiseasefollowingthe re-activation of the dormant organism or from community transmission of active forms of the organism. Of the number , approximately 1.1 million are children and 860,000 people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Three million persons miss out on care and treatment yearly, another 500,000 develop a drug-resistant form of TB (DR-TB; not curable with usual TB drugs), with only one in three able to receive the appropriate treatment for DR-TB.
According to World Health Organisation ( WHO), about $13 billion is needed yearly for TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care to achieve the global target agreed at the 2018 UN high level-meeting on TB. In Nigeria, a death certificate is issued every five minutes for a disease that is curable and preventable. Available statistics from the WHO shows that in Nigeria, one person dies every five minute from TB and Nigeria has the highest TB burden in Africa and sixth in the world, accounting for about 4.6 per cent of the global TB burden
Specifically, about 15 Nigerians die each hour due to TB, equivalent to about 347 deaths daily, 10,417 monthly and 125,000 in a year.