The Nigerian Thoracic Society (NTS) has raised alert that Nigeria ranked tops among the 22 countries with highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) globally and urged the government to step up control measures to checkmate the disease.
NTS President, Prof. Peters Etete, stated that tuberculosis was the single commonest infectious disease worldwide with an estimated nine million cases and 1.5 million deaths annually.
He said, “Rates of TB are increasing rapidly in Africa, in parallel with the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Virus (AIDS) epidemic. Nigeria ranks high among the 22 countries with highest disease burden globally. Though TB is a medical disease, it has a lot of socio economic con-founders.
“The presence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has further led to the increase in the occurrence of TB. The problem has been further compounded by the emergence of multi-drug resistance and even more recently the extensively drug resistant TB”, he said.
“Globally up to half a million people developed multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), with extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) reported by 100 countries. There is slow progress in tackling drug-resistant TB – three in four drug-resistant TB cases remain without a diagnosis. TB affects the economically productive age group in the community, thereby affecting productivity.”
