Its country representative in Nigeria, Dr. Walter Kazadi, stated this at the commencement of the 2nd National TB Conference with the theme: “Sustaining a resilient TB response in Nigeria: Addressing the impact of COVID19 and other diseases”, held in Abuja.
Represented by the deputy country representative, Mr Chimbaru Alexander, he said with Nigeria having the highest burden of TB in Africa and accounting for 4.6 per cent of the global TB burden, the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the progress made towards ending the TB epidemic.
Kazadi added that there was a large global drop in the number of people newly diagnosed with TB, from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million people in 2020.
According to him, a total of 16 countries accounted for 93 per cent of this reduction. “Nigeria is not among these countries. Nigeria was rather among the few countries that recorded an increase in TB notification with the notification increasing by 15 per cent in 2020.”
“However, about 70 per cent of the estimated TB cases in the country in 2020 were not detected despite the increase in TB notification, this undetected TB case continues to fuel the spread of the disease in the community.”