Tuberculosis (TB) is the second leading infectious killer disease globally. This has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to set some milestone targets to achieve by 2025.
The WHO expects that by 2025, there will be a 50 percent reduction in the number of incidence rates globally with 2015 as the base year. The world health body also anticipates a 75 percent reduction in deaths and zero percent in the number of people facing catastrophic TB costs.
Its 2022 global TB report showed a 10 percent reduction in incidence rates from 2015 to 2021. Death to TB recorded a 5.9 percent reduction rate within the same period. The report, however, stated that 48 percent of the people with TB face catastrophic costs.
Nigeria’s TB statistics shows improvement in some areas against increasing situations in others.
Ranked sixth globally
Nigeria is ranked sixth nation with the highest number of TB cases globally. The country, in 2021, contributed 4.4 percent to the total TB cases globally.
Data from the WHO show that two-thirds of the global TB cases are found in eight countries. These countries are India (28 percent), Indonesia (9.2 percent), China (7.4 percent), the Philippines (7.0 percent), Pakistan (5.8 percent), Nigeria (4.4 percent), Bangladesh (3.6 percent), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2.9 percent).
Nigeria’s proportion of global cases increased steadily from 2000 to 2020. It, however, declined in 2021.
Increasing incidences and death movement
Nigeria experienced an increased incidence of TB from 2000 to 2021. The number of TB incidences increased from 269,000 in 2000 to 467,000 in 2021. In between the years, there has been a steady increase in the number of incidences recorded in the country.
However, despite the increasing number of cases recorded, the number in the country’s population has remained at 0.22 percent throughout the years.
Decline in death-to-incidence proportion
There has been an increase in the survival rate of TB in Nigeria over the last six years. Data show that though there has been a corresponding increase in the incidences and deaths of TB (with a decline in deaths from 2019 to 2021), more victims have survived the disease in Nigeria.
In 2015, 39.96 percent of those infected died of TB. The country recorded 403,000 incidences of TB, with 157,000 deaths. The proportion declined steadily from that point up to 2021 when 467,000 cases and 125,000 deaths were reported. This gave death-to-infection rate of 26.77 percent.
Thus, the survival rate increased from 9 of 20 infected cases in 2000 to 15 of 20 in 2021. This represents a 67 percent decline over the period.
Nigeria’s effort to eradicate TB has been rigorous across the country. In the southwestern part of the country, daily routing activities are deployed to combat the disease. This was affirmed by the Medical Director/ Programme Manager, Global Funds for Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM), Dr Dairo Diola.
“We carry out daily routine activities which include movement of patients to access treatment at health facilities and TB treatment centers as well as disruption of sputum shipment from facilities to laboratories,” Dr Diola acknowledged.
He concluded that the country had made some great strides towards eradicating TB, which had yielded some positive results.