Nigeria accounts for 70% TB funding gap -Experts

Stakeholders in the health sector have decried the 70 per cent Tuberculosis funding gap in Nigeria saying it is affecting the fight against the disease.  

The stakeholders, while stressing the need to prioritize Tuberculosis, noted that it is only by doing so that the country can meet its 2030 target of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Speaking during the 4th Annual Legislative Summit on Health organized by the Stop TB Partnership, USAID, and the Nigeria Parliamentary TB caucus, a board member of Stop TB Partnership Emeka Ogbuabor explained that out of the 30 per cent funds used in 2019, 23 per cent was realized from donors.

Ogbuabor said, “We have about a 70 percent funding gap. Out of the 30 per cent funds we used in 2019, 23 per cent were developmental assistance funds; only 7 per cent were domestically mobilized’’.

While calling on government and policy makers to prioritise TB, he stressed the need to increase funding, coverage, improve access and use in order to control the disease, which he added kills at least 18 persons per hour in the country.

“An estimated 18 people die per hour of TB-related diseases, and that means we have 432 persons dying from TB everyday in Nigeria.

We contribute about 11 percent of the global gap in the number of new TB cases, and after 440,000 estimated TB cases in Nigeria, we are only able to notify 27 percent. So where are over 70 percent of TB cases?’’, he questioned.

On his part, Chairman, National Emergency Medical Treatment Committee, Dr Felix Ogedengbe maintained that the quest to attain UHC will remain a dream without an effective Emergency Medical Services (EMS).

The experts speaking in one voice stressed the need for a wakeup call to join the league of countries that have curbed the destructive impact of the disease.

Recall that the 2019 Global Tuberculosis report WHO had revealed that Nigeria remains one of the 30 countries globally with the highest burden of TB.

Experts say there is indisputable evidence that TB is a poverty-related disease that concentrates in the most vulnerable, marginalised and hard-to-reach populations.

Incidentally, it is not everybody infected that will exhibit the symptoms or become ill. If a person has a strong immune system, the person could live a normal life without coming down with the disease.

This however makes it easy for the infection to be spread if the latent pathogens become active in future due to compromised immunity.

Written By: Doosuur Iwambe

Source: The Daily Times

Link: https://dailytimes.ng/nigeria-accounts-for-70-tb-funding-gap-experts/