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Dr Lucica Ditiu, Executive Director, Stop TB partnership Geneva, on Thursday, decried the slow pace and poor conditions of tuberculosis (TB) work in Nigeria.
Ditiu disclosed this in a goodwill message in Lagos at a dinner with Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State and Private Sector community on Domestic Resource Mobilisation to end TB in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event was organised by Stop TB partnership Nigeria, as part of the High-level Mission on Domestic Resource Mobilisation to end TB in Nigeria.
Ditiu decried that in Nigeria, in spite of all the different languages, TB had not received the required attention.
She lamented that being a curable disease, TB was still killing people on daily basis, “perhaps because it doesn’t affect rich people.”
Ditiu said that some of the challenges the country was faced with in TB eradication included huge financial gap, improvement in diagnostics through priority funding of sate governments among others.
The executive director, however, heaved a sigh of relief as Gov. Sanwo-Olu cared and understood that TB was a threat and had heed the clarion call to stop TB.
Similarly, Dr Queen Ogbuji-Ladipo, Board Chair, Stop TB said” TB kills more than HIV/AIDS,” saying that Nigeria was among the 30 high TB burden countries in the world.
Ogbuji-Ladipo, who lamented that the country was 6th globally and 2nd in Africa, noted that this was unacceptable as TB was both preventable and treatable.
She, however, noted that there was limited financial resources for TB response in Nigeria, saying only 31 per cent was available for implementation leaving a gap of 69 per cent.
According to her, it will be very difficult for TB eradication to reach its desired goal with the gap level.
She asked that all hands be on deck in the discussion on ways to mobilise resources to achieve desired sustainable result. (NAN)
