UCH treated 300 drug-resistant TB patients in 8 years —CMD

IN the last eight years, the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, has treated about 300 patients with the drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis.

The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Professor Temitope Alonge made the disclosure on Friday at the foundation laying ceremony of a new drug-resistant TB treatment centre in the hospital, funded by Damien Foundation Nigeria.

According to Professor Alonge, many people have lost their lives to the drug-resistant TB over the years before the hospital pioneered the treatment of the deadly disease.

The UCH boss said lethargy among Nigerians and health workers had led to preventable deaths and complications from TB.

He disclosed that many of the patients suffering from the drug-resistant TB who were treated at the hospital were referred from other locations where they could not be properly treated or where they lacked adequate information about the disease.

Professor Alonge, who gave the assurance that tuberculosis, including its drug-resistant types, was treatable, said people with coughs that have not ceased for two weeks after taking regular cough medication should get tested for TB.

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“People should not wait until they begin to lose weight or have complications. At, UCH, Ibadan, we have the reference laboratory where we send sputum or blood samples of all suspected cases of TB. The hospital can manage both the conventional TB patients as well as drug-resistant TB cases adequately,” he said.

The chairman of the National Drug-resistant TB Committee, Professor Olusoji Ige, declared that at least 2,900 persons with drug-resistant TB had been treated in Nigeria and more were waiting to access treatment.

Ige, also the head of the team managing drug-resistant TB at UCH, Ibadan, said the nation’s pioneer treatment centre for drug-resistant TB had been constrained by space and facilities needed to take more patients for treatment.

The expert, who noted that new drugs had reduced treatment period for drug-resistant TB from 20 months to nine months, stated that the hospital had also commenced community TB healthcare to ensure more people had access to TB treatment.

The Country-Director of Damien Foundation, Dr Osman El Tayeb, said the new drug-resistant TB treatment centre, consisting of three blocks, would be completed by the end of the year.

He noted that drug-resistant TB was noticed in Nigeria in the 90’s when most patients receiving treatment for the disease were not cured despite giving them quality drugs that were provided by the National TB programme.