….UN body hails Nigeria, six others for HIV preventive treatment
The 2022 global tuberculosis (TB) report by the World Health Organization (WHO) has shown that in 2021, not less than 1.6 million people died of tuberculosis infection globally, including 187,000 among HIV positive people.
The report also revealed that an estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with tuberculosis last year, which is an increase of 4.5 per cent from 2020.
The WHO report stated that the continued challenges with providing and accessing essential TB services meant that many people with TB were not diagnosed and treated. “The reported number of people newly diagnosed with TB fell from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020. There was a partial recovery to 6.4 million in 2021, but this was still well below pre-pandemic levels,” it said.
It further showed that this is the first time in many years that an increase has been reported in the number of people falling ill with TB and drug resistant TB, especially as TB services are among many others disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Also, ongoing conflicts across Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East have further exacerbated the situation for vulnerable populations.
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The WHO, however, hailed the achievements in TB preventive treatment for people living with HIV in Nigeria and six other countries – South Africa, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, which collectively accounted for 82 per cent of those started on preventive treatment in 2021.
It noted that the preventive treatment has far surpassed the global target of 6 million in the period 2018 to 2022, reaching more than 10 million in only 4 years.
Stating that TB is the second (after COVID- 19) deadliest infectious killer, is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs, the report showed that most people who develop the disease in 2021 are adults.
While men accounted for 56.5 per cent of the TB burden, adult women accounted for 32.5 per cent and children for 11 per cent, many new cases of TB are attributable to five risk factors: undernutrition, HIV infection, alcohol use disorders, smoking and diabetes.
According to Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General, “If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that with solidarity, determination, innovation and the equitable use of tools, we can overcome severe health threats. Let’s apply those lessons to tuberculosis. It is time to put a stop to this long-time killer. Working together, we can end TB.”