COVID-19 reversed global fight against TB by eight years in 2020 ― Ehanire

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, has disclosed that the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought global case finding levels of tuberculosis back by eight years with an 18% reduction in the number of patients diagnosed with TB.

He said the drop from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020 set the global case finding efforts back to 2012 level.

Ehanire said this in his opening remarks at the commencement of a 3-day 2021 National TB Conference in Abuja.

Ehanire said TB is one of the older infectious diseases that the world including Nigeria have resolved to eliminate as he has confidence that Nigeria shall succeed with TB the same way it succeeded with polio.

Ehanire explained that the advent of COVID-19 pandemic and its control measures impacted many aspects of human endeavours, including health services, and in some cases reversed gains made over the years in aspects of health programmes that affected TB control.

According to Ehanire: “The choice of the theme for this year conference Sustaining a Resilient TB Response in Nigeria: Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 and Other Diseases is therefore fitting.

“It is expected that at the end of the three-day conference, enough evidence would have been gathered and new knowledge generated to help the global TB control efforts reverse the negative impact of the pandemic and other diseases on TB control efforts.”

Ehanire further disclosed that Nigeria is one of the epicenters of the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa and also the country with the highest burden of TB in the continent.

“The first COVID-19 case was diagnosed on 27th February 2020 and measures to control the pandemic were introduced, with eventual lockdown in the Quarter 2 (Q2), 2020.

“Nigeria recorded a 30% reduction in GeneXpert testing in the first week of the lockdown, the number of notified TB cases also dropped by 17% from 33,119 TB cases in Q1, 2020 to 27,353 in Q2, 2020.

“This necessitated the conceptualization and implementation of innovative interventions to ensure program sustainability and mitigate impact on TB control efforts, the implementation of which resulted in an eventual 15% increase across the country, in the number of TB cases notified from 120,266 TB cases in 2019 to 138,591 TB cases in 2020, making us one of the few countries that recorded increase in TB notification in 2020, despite the pandemic.

“Key among the interventions was a strategic engagement of the private sector, introduction of targeted, data-driven community TB case finding activities, integration of TB case finding in COVID-19 outreaches, active TB and integrated TB/COVID-19 case finding activities in health facilities among others.

“Some of these helpful practices in TB case finding will be shared during this conference, so I urge participants to attend all the sessions.”

Ehanire expressed delight for the achievements made in nine months into this year 2021 as government has already surpassed the total number of TB cases notified in all of 2020 by about 7%, and for the first time, Nigeria could be notifying up to 200,000 TB cases by the end of 2021.

“I like to here commend all who are making this happen, including our partners WHO, Global Fund, USAID and other USG agencies and their partners, KNCV, Stop TB partnership, the TB network, community based organizations and health workers who are the foot soldiers, for their hard work in the fight to end TB in Nigeria.

“We know that we still have a way to go to reach the targets for ending the TB epidemic, and that most of our TB cases are yet undetected.

“We are not as close as we would like to the United Nations High Level Meeting (UNHLM) target on TB case finding, TB Preventive Treatment (TPT) and other TB thematic areas set to be achieved by 2022 and the milestones for ending TB in Nigeria.

“We must therefore work with our partners to accelerate and scale up our current efforts significantly, mobilize needed domestic and international resources for implementing the National TB strategic Plan 2021-2025, to end the TB epidemic in Nigeria.

“We look forward to the outcomes and reports of this conference, which we believe will help us further step up TB control efforts.”

In her special remarks, the Global TB Champion, who is the wife of the president, Dr Aisha Buhari, said the world and Nigeria is at a crossroads in the response to end Tuberculosis (TB) globally.

Buhari who was represented by the wife of Niger State governor, Amina Abubakar, said COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that government cannot win the fight against TB by working in isolation, while calling on stakeholders to work together to end TB by supporting a multi-sectorial approach and effective coordination to eradicate the deadly diseases.

“Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigeria still made progress in case detection and treatment. But we need to intensify efforts to recover lost ground.

“It is important that we should not lose sight of TB which has been around us much longer and continues to kill people in Nigeria at an alarming rate.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) Country Director, Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, represented by Deputy World Health Representative, Chimbaru Alexander, also said TB remains a major public health problem globally and is one of the leading causes of death worldwide.

He explained that an estimated 9.9 million people developed TB in 2020, with Nigeria having the highest burden of TB in Africa accounting for 4.6% of the Global TB burden (WHO Global TB report 2021).

“The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the progress made towards ending TB epidemic.

“There was a large global drop in number of people newly diagnosed with TB, from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million people in 2020. A total of 16 countries accounted for 93% of this reduction.

“Nigeria is not among these countries. Nigeria was rather among the few countries that recorded an increase in TB notification with the notification increasing by 15% in 2020.”

He, however, said about 70% of the estimated TB cases in the country in 2020 were not detected despite the increase in TB notification.

“These undetected TB cases continue to fuel the spread of the disease in the community.

“The WHO as a technical partner will be supporting the National TB programme at all levels in the development of guidelines, SOPs, adoption of new strategies, regimen and interventions in addition to building capacities and enhancing data analysis and use for optimizing performance.”

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COVID-19 reversed global fight against TB by eight years | COVID-19 reversed global fight against TB by eight years | COVID-19 reversed global fight against TB by eight years | COVID-19 reversed global fight against TB by eight years