World TB day: WHO urges African leaders to provide adequate care

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged Africa governments to use domestic resources to fund core Tuberculosis (TB) control services in their countries

WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, in a press statement to mark the World TB Day, said African governments need to increase their investment on TB.

She said the current spending on the care and prevention of TB is below the levels required to end the epidemic by the end date of the Sustainable Development Goals.

According to her, core TB control services should be funded from domestic resources, and universal health coverage introduced to ensure quality assured preventative, diagnostic, treatment and care services.

She said despite 2018 WHO global report showing that there has been a decrease in the disease burden globally, many African countries are not fast enough to reach the first milestones of the End TB Strategy in 2020.

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She urged political leaders and national governments to adopt policies and programmatic actions to foster a multisectoral response to end the epidemic. She also urged international partners for continued technical and financial support in the fight against TB and related conditions.

“We need to ensure universal access to the WHO recommended rapid molecular tests as first-line tests for diagnosis for all presumptive TB cases, as well as to adopt the new WHO recommended drugs and drug combinations for treating drug-resistant TB.

“Within the broader context of a revitalised Primary Health Care system, these measures should include initiatives to look for and effectively treat all existing cases, and scaling up preventive treatment for high-risk populations, especially people living with HIV and child contacts of known TB cases,” she said.

According to the WHO 2018 global report, TB cases in the African region declined by four per cent per year, placing the region second among all WHO regions over the period between 2013 and 2017.

The report showed particularly impressive reductions (4–8 per cent per year) have occurred in Southern Africa (Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe), following a peak in the HIV epidemic and the expansion of TB and HIV prevention and care.

Unfortunately, Nigeria is yet one of the countries with the highest burden of the disease globally. An estimated 418,000 new TB cases occurred in Nigeria in 2018.

With only 25 per cent detection rate, Nigeria is classified among countries with a high burden for TB, TB/HIV and MDR-TB and currently ranks sixth globally and first in Africa.