As the world marks World’s Tuberculosis Day, the Nigeria Thoracic Society (NTS) has disclosed that the nation ranked high among 22 countries with highest rate of the deadly disease.
President of the Society, Professor Etete Peters, who made the revelation in his message on the World Tuberculosis Day, with the theme, “Unite and end TB”, said while a third of the world’s population are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, there is a new infection every second and the rates of TB are increasing rapidly in Africa, in parallel with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Professor Peters who is also the Chief Medical Director of University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH) explained that the presence of HIV/AIDS pandemic has further led to the increase in the occurrence of TB.
He added that the problem has been further compounded by the emergence of multi-drug resistance and even more recently the extensively drug resistant TB.
Globally, according to him, up to half a million people developed multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), with extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) reported by 100 countries.
Elsewhere, the Rivers state government says it will provide more treatment centers to tackle the raising cases of tuberculosis in the country.
The state commissioner for health Dr THEOPHILUS ODAGME made the promised at a road show and free treatment organized to sensitize and treat people suffering from tuberculosis in Rivers state.
He called on people to imbibe the culture of cleanliness and change the mentality of attributing sickness and viral diseases to native attack or witchcraft.
He appealed to anyone experiencing cough to seek quick medical intervention.
Odagme said the state government will create more treatment centers across the local government to ensure that treatment is accessible and preventable.
Meanwhile the Rivers state chairman of the Nigerian veterinary medical Association Dr NATHANIEL BAKURA is appealing to the State Government to employ more veterinary doctors to help with the inspection of the animals before it is slaughter at the Abattoir for human consumption.
He said the state has only two veterinary doctors to man and inspect all the abattoir within the city and the twenty three local government area.
Dr Bakura noted that most of the animal slaughter in abattoirs have tuberculosis, caused by micro bacterium called BOVINES.
He said the best way to tackle the spread of TUBERCULOSIS is for the government to employ veterinary doctors to monitor and inspect carcass to ensure that its fit for human consumption.
DR BAKURA said unlike other viral disease like bird flu that can be destroyed by heat, tuberculosis is heat resistant. ‘its very difficult for the TUBERCLES to be destroyed by heat that is why when lungs are found with tuberculous we do is partial condemnation, but at times it can spread to the fatty system and other tissues of the animal carcass, what we do is total commendation because any human being that eat such meat stands the risk of contacting tuberculosis, because TUBERCLES are very resistant to heat’
Nigeria is ranked fourth among the twenty two countries in the world with Tuberculosis
The Theme for this year’s World tuberculosis day is, FIND, TREAT, CURE and working together to end tuberculosis’.
