The Stop TB Partnership has urged the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire to push for more high-level engagements on tuberculosis (TB) with the African Union (AU) and other global bodies, to enable more funding and interventions to end the TB scourge in Nigeria.

Noting that the government has made tremendous efforts in other programmes such as malaria and HIV, the Stop TB Partnership, which is a United Nations-hosted organisation, urged the minister to table the issues surrounding the prioritisation of TB in Nigeria and the African Union.

The Executive Director of Stop TB Partnership Geneva, Dr Lucica Ditiu, who made this known during her meeting with the minister in Abuja, said: “I know the pushes for malaria and HIV at the global and regional levels are very important. I would welcome it if you think of including TB.

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“That is because there is fragmentation that is happening here; on HIV, there is NACA and NASCP. You have the Malaria Programme and End Malaria Council. But what is missing from here is what is happening with TB that kills more than each of these. Especially if they are in the directorate of public health, where is the TB that kills more than malaria and HIV together in Nigeria?

“It will look like an agenda push from outside; because there is a movement of malaria by the African Union (AU), then automatically it should happen in the country.

“I urge you to consider including TB in there because it doesn’t make sense. When you have 130,000 people in Nigeria dying because of tuberculosis, and to hear that there is absolutely no movement in creating high-level engagement for TB, it doesn’t make sense to me.

“You are in the Regional Committee in Togo. We have some sessions with the African Union there, and we are working with them for an MoU. In your interventions, you can say- ‘we know TB is killing so much in Africa, why are we not having WHO-led efforts in the African region or with partners etc.?”

The minister said: “We will try our best to increase funding and speed up diagnostics. We are still working very hard with the private sector. We are working with the Association of General Medical Practitioners and Guild of Medical Directors to get all involved across the states participating in the screening and identification of cases.”