|
|
Nigeria: Health Secretariat Celebrates World Tuberculosis Day
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Leadership (Abuja)
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 27 March 2008
Federal Capital Territory health and human services secretariat has celebrated its world tuberculosis day with a promise to renew and accelerate its commitment to the fight against the dreaded disease.
Honourable secretary of health and human services, Dr. Abubakar Aliyu Gombe, reiterated that the day was set aside by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to create awareness about tuberculosis (TB) and issues surrounding it.
His words: "This year's theme "I am stopping TB. You can stop TB, join us" is more than just a slogan. TB is a disease that attracts concern internationally and going by this year's theme the fight is a public health imperative," He stated that TB strikes people in their prime and robs children of their parents.
He added that more people die from TB than from any other curable infectious disease in the world because, according to him, the disease kills approximately 2 million people every year with 98 percent from the developing countries.
Aliyu further stated that Nigeria ranks 4th among the 22 countries of the world that are burdened by TB and first in Africa. He revealed that more than 380,000 new cases of TB occur in Nigeria annually with about 30,000 deaths.
He revealed that the age group of 15-64 years are mainly affected, stressing that "TB is not only a clinical problem, but also an economic, social and cultural issue, which can be controlled, prevented and cured.
|
He said FCT started implementing TB Directly Observed Treatment (DOT) strategy in 2003 in about 12 health facilities, saying, "since then there has been a progressive expansion of both the DOTs and AFB microscopic centres." He disclosed that over 20 million people have been treated under the DOTs strategy world wide.
Aliyu explained that TB is a disease that can be stopped and must be stopped, adding that the "world TB day is also a day to take stock of where we are and where we ought to be in the fight".
In his words "FCT's modest achievements and progress have, thus far, been recorded, with an increase in case detection from 356 cases in 2003 to 1594 cases in 2007. And this was due largely to the increase in government's counterpart funding and TB control programme support that was ploughed into human capacity building as well as the purchase of equipment and laboratory reagents, with support from the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria".
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Leadership. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
