A global non-profit organisation, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has called on world leaders to do their part in ending tuberculosis, noting that it is 100 per cent preventable and treatable.
A statement by the organisation, in commemoration of World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, stated that the day is about honoring the millions of lives lost to TB while renewing the urgency around prevention, treatment, and research for the world’s deadliest infectious disease, which has been a crisis for many decades.
It said: “In 2021, TB claimed 1.6 million lives, and over 10 million people acquired TB, yet it remains woefully neglected and underfunded in many countries. Even though tuberculosis is a global epidemic, over 95% of TB deaths occur in lower-income countries.
“The World Health Organization currently estimates that finances were less than 40% of what was needed to prevent and treat TB in 2022. The time is now for heads of state to urgently focus efforts on TB prevention and mitigate millions of avoidable deaths.
“AHF has made TB a top priority with efforts focused on educating our staff and clients, screening for TB in our clinics, and prioritizing, preventing, and treating HIV/TB co-infection, the number one cause of death for people living with HIV.
AHF Chief of Global Advocacy and Policy. Terri Ford, said: “As a preventable and treatable disease, world leaders must do more to end TB, and we’re calling on them to do just that on World TB Day and beyond,” said
“With our World TB Day theme ‘Yes! We Can End TB,’ AHF urges all governments and public health institutions to do their part to ensure TB research, prevention, and treatment programs are fully funded and supported. We all must do more to finally stop TB worldwide, particularly in lower-income countries.”
“AHF country teams are using World TB Day to send letters to their respective heads of state, calling on them to attend the United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB this September to show their commitment to ending tuberculosis in their countries.
“AHF will also host a “Reviving TB Advocacy Worldwide” panel discussion with public health thought leaders and TB experts at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health conference on April 13.
The Country Program Director, AHF Nigeria, Dr. Echey Ijezie, said: “Ending TB for us in Nigeria must come with intensified level of case finding and for patients who show up in hospitals to embrace treatment, which is free across health facilities in the country. Importantly, we must increase the funding available to TB, improve the level of education and awareness about TB, as well as engage pointedly, the rising incidences of stigma related to TB while not forgetting that TB is curable’’
He further stated: ‘‘Nigeria’s situation deserves urgent attention as the World Health Organization (WHO) lists the nation among the ten countries accounting for 64% of the global gap in TB case finding, with India, Indonesia and Nigeria accounting for almost half of the total gap’’