Only 5% of health facilities cover tuberculosis —Dr Osakwe

MORE male adults, according to Dr Chijioke Osakwe, executive director, Initiative for Prevention and Control of Diseases, IPCD, are affected with tuberculosis (TB) in Nigeria than female and children.

Disclosing the number of affected persons in percentages, Dr Osakwe revealed that 56 per cent are males, 44 per cent females and 12 per cent, of children have TB.

He observed that in spite of financial support from Nigerian government and international partners, domestic contribution to the fight against TB is still very low.

He said, “Although funding from external sources is meant to complement government’s efforts, we really need a lot of funds to create awareness on the disease and also to enable people have unrestricted access to early diagnosis and treatment.”

Stressing the barriers militating against finding missing TB cases, he said, “Only about 5 per cent of health facilities is covered with TB services. You can see there is a lot of gap.

However, there are barriers to identifying people with TB. These include lack of adequate knowledge about the disease by health workers. Many of the health workers are not aware of the symptoms of TB to watch out for.

“There is also the issue of stigma because a lot of patients don’t want to be seen as having disease.

“Basically, this workshop is a step in the right direction to step up campaign against TB.”

We need to sensitise our people about the missing cases of TB for them to develop initiatives and innovative ways of fighting the disease.”