Experts canvass increased TB funding to save Nigerians

The Stop TB Partnership has called on governments at the federal, state and local government levels, as well as the corporate sector to invest in tuberculosis and prevent people from dying from preventable and curable diseases.

The organisation lamented that of the N150 billion ($373 million) needed for TB control in Nigeria in the year 2020, only 31 per cent was available to implementers, with only seven per cent coming from the Federal Government and 24 per cent from donors, leaving behind a funding gap of roughly 70 per cent.

Acting Board Chair of the Stop TB Partnership Nigeria, Dr. Queen Ogbuji, who spoke yesterday in Abuja, observed that the low levels of funding for TB response year after year was no longer acceptable, adding that globally, of the $15 billion pledged at the United Nations High-Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB in 2018, less than half had been delivered.

She said the disease remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers and every day, about 4,100 people die, while close to 30,000 people fall ill on account of the scourge.

Ogbuji submitted that more investment would save millions of lives and accelerate the end of the epidemic.

The Executive Director of KNCV TB Foundation Nigeria, Dr. Bethrand Odume, observed that the most populous nation still accounts for 4.6 per cent of the globe’s infections and the highest in Africa.

He canvassed adequate supplies of drugs and essential commodities, as well as strengthened of the health systems technologically.

In his remarks, National Coordinator, National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCP), Dr. Chukwuma Anyaike, warned that the drug-resistant TB was increasing and costs more to treat, besides children dying of the ailment.