Lagos — An HIV/AIDS opportunistic disease, Tuberculosis thought to be gradually fading out of the country may be staging a dangerous comeback with the discovery of Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) types currently being reported in some health care delivery institutions.

A lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Professor Folasade Ogunsola, who disclosed this yesterday at the Doctors' Forum, a bi-annual lecture series organised by a notable pathology laboratory, PathCare Nigeria, in Lagos noted that MDR tuberculosis requires the use of second-line drugs.

She said tuberculosis has constituted a problem in Nigeria for such reasons as lots of people with the disease not being detected and not being able to access treatment, with the situation being compounded as a result of HIV/AIDS pandemic in the country."

In addition, we are also experiencing some challenges, because getting the TB programme to provide drugs and services to all the communities is not being made available to all citizens despite government and non-governmental organisations efforts," she noted.

Quoting from a text by the Chairman, National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme, Dr. Oni Idigbe, Ogunsola said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had ranked Nigeria fourth among 22 countries that bear high burden of TB and recommends that such countries should detect at least 75 per cent of active TB cases and treat 85 per cent.

According to her, the best way to prevent resistant TB is to get people to take the whole course of standard TB drugs, but blamed the government on funding, stressing, however, that there was still an urgency to allocate more money to treat people with multi-drug resistant TB.

"If everyone is able to detect one case of active TB, it will save 10-15 more people because one person with an active case can infect 10-15 more people when he/she coughs or sneezes," she said.