Aisha Buhari urges action against tuberculosis

LA TUBERCULOSIS : DOCUMENTAL COMPLETO

The wife of Nigerian President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari has called on well-meaning Nigerians, corporate bodies and international development partners to join forces together in the fight against tuberculosis in Nigeria.

She made the appeal while speaking at the National Tuberculosis Conference in Abuja on Tuesday.

Mrs. Buhari who was represented at the occasion by the wife of the country"s Vice President, Dolapo Osinbajo said the conference came at a time Nigeria needed to pay more attention to issues of tuberculosis as it has become the most dangerous disease in the world.

Nigeria currently has the highest number of tuberculosis cases in Africa and the third highest in the world.

Statistics shows that over 600, 000 become infected with tuberculosis every year in Nigeria.

Nigeria is having one of the lowest detecting rate in the world and she is only detecting just 17 percent of tuberculosis cases.

The wife of the President who lamented that so many Nigerians are dying from the preventable and curable disease, insisted that the government in collaboration with development partners will do all that is needed to change the situation.

Also speaking at the occasion, Prof. Lovett Lawson said since Nigerians were one of the most traveled in the world, defeating tuberculosis in Nigeria will translate to victory globally.

On his part, USAID Mission Director in Nigeria, Mike Harvey said the US has deployed $128million to fight tuberculosis in Nigeria since 2003 which is their biggest investment on the disease.

"In 2015, US government lunched both the 2015 and 2019 global TB strategy as well as national action plan to combat drug resistant tb and in these plans, we identify Nigeria as our priority country", he added.

While calling on more commitment from Nigeria, he lamented that 68 percent of the national tuberculosis project remain unfunded, adding that from the 38 percent that have been funded, only 13 percent came from domestic funding.

Source: http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/health/aisha-buhari-urges-action-against-tuberculosis/147256.html