Global Fund approves N50.75bn grant to tackle TB in Nigeria
Nigeria is expected to get a three-year grant worth $140 million (N50.75 billion) to tackle Tuberculosis in the country.
Programme Management Unit Team Lead for Global Fund TB Grant, National TB and Leprosy Programme, Dr. Emperor Ubochioma, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja.
Ubochioma said the grant to run from 2021 to 2023 is to complement the efforts of the federal government in the fight against tuberculosis.
The tuberculosis programme will take 16 per cent out of the $890 million (N322.63 billion) from Global Fund coming to Nigeria to reduce the burden of three diseases, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, from 2021 to 2023.
The official said Nigeria is sixth globally and first in Africa in terms of the disease burden, saying “it is estimated that 400,000 tuberculosis cases are to be detected annually in Nigeria.
“With increase population, this number is also increasing. However, we are detecting less than 25 per cent of them and those gaps are still in the community transmitting the disease.
“Our step to address this is to make sure that tuberculosis services are free in the public sector and also to support private sector to actually provide the services that are adequate.
“We support the private sector and give them appropriate drugs for it by making sure that tuberculosis treatment and services are accessible in the nearest community,’’ he stated.
Ubochioma said that the office would also focus on creating awareness to pass the right information to the populace on the disease.
“The good thing we are doing is to expand our prevention mechanism for tuberculosis in Nigeria and increase diagnostic capacity to be able to diagnose resistance part of tuberculosis; addressing this is very key in our programme success,’’ he said.
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According to him, the grant will also be used to procure drugs for patients and facilitate easy access to tuberculosis treatment and diagnosis.
The official however, advised people living with tuberculosis to visit the nearest tuberculosis centre to access the services, which are provided free.
He said any patient on treatment would within two weeks be able to be free from infecting others.
Ubochioma therefore, advised people living with tuberculosis to go to nearest public hospital and receive the free treatment
