Nigeria: Over 81,000 new TB cases recorded
The National TB Leprosy Control Programme has said that there are over 81,000 newly recorded cases of Tuberculosis in Nigeria.
FCT Branch Chairman, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN), Dr. Casmir Ifeanyi, made the revelation in a keynote address at a round-table session of the association in Abuja on Thursday.
He said TB, the leading cause of death in adults worldwide, second only to HIV/AIDS, is a lung infection transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease.
Dr. Ifeanyi said Nigeria is the world's fifth largest TB contributor while data for TB prevalence in rural areas of Nigeria are inaccurate with low cases of detection that can be attributed to poorly funded laboratory services in rural communities in Nigeria.
He said TB is one of the top ten killers of children nationwide, and according to the WHO, at least half a million babies and children contract TB each year and as many as 70,000 die of the disease.
In his presentation on improving diagnosis and TB laboratory strengthening, David Joseph Salihu, said that pursuing quality Directly Observed Therapy (DOTS) expansion and enhancement could be done through political commitment and case detection through quality assured bacteriology.
He said each TB cough emits 3,000 droplets of organism which is highly infectious with treatment lasting for at least six months.
