The Commissioner for Health, Dr Nimkong Lar has said that Plateau records 2,600 cases of Tuberculosis (TB) annually.
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The commissioner made the disclosure while addressing newsmen to mark World Tuberculosis Day on Tuesday in Jos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the world TB Day celebrated annually on March 24 to raise awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of TB and to end the infectious disease.
Lar said that 13.2 per cent increase of all forms of notified TB cases in the state were children below 15 years, adding that at the end of 2018 and 2019, there was a 19.9 per cent increase of all forms of TB of the same age.
He said in 2018, the state was notified of 2,625 TB cases on treatment, however, 233 died, nine had treatment failure, while 158 were lost to follow up, which is above the acceptable figure nationally.
Nimkong said that only seven local government areas out of the 17 in the state have rapid diagnostic machine for detecting TB.
He called on donor agencies and NGOs to help the state in getting at least two in each local government areas.
The commissioner described TB as an airborne infectious disease, with an infected person having the capacity of transmitting to an average of 10 to15 persons.
He urged people with symptoms of the disease to visit health centres as the treatment was free.
“Anyone can have TB but people who have a weakened immune system are at higher risk of getting sick like the elderly, children, persons with diabetes, HIV, cancer and malnutrition among others.
“TB affects commonly and majorly the lungs of pulmonary TB, but it can also affect other parts of the body or extra pulmonary TB,” he said.
Lar said the commonest symptoms of TB were persistent cough for two weeks, night sweats, loss of appetite, loss of weight and fever.
He said Nigeria was among the 30 most burdened countries with TB and the first in Africa, adding that the disease required commitment of all critical stakeholders to address.
He said the state required a budget of N129 million to end the scourge of TB.
Earlier, Mr Gonen Lakda, the Director of Public Health, Ministry of Health, said that members of the community must be involved to end the disease because government “cannot handle it alone’’.
Dr John Kwari, the Regional Manager of Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria, called for the identification of TB patients living in communities and their prompt treatment to control the its spread.
Dr Rebecca Olatunde, state Technical Officer of the World Health Organisation, urged the Plateau government to involve the community in the fight against TB.
She said that the bottom up approach was more effective and would ensure access of important information of TB as part of efforts to end it.