The Cross River State Director of Public Health, Mr. Jonah Offor, said the state has seen a drop of about 4000 cases of tuberculosis from the 8,000 cases that would have been reported.
He made the announcement yesterday during a sensitization exercise and campaign to mark World Tuberculosis Day 2023 organized by Aksi Perobosan with the support of USAID and other partners at the Ministry of Health premises in Calabar.
While worrying that the number is less than expected, the Director of Public Health said only an average of 5000 cases are reported each year.
Offor said this shows that the country has lost a lot of TB cases that are usually found in rural areas.
“Giving a breakdown to The Guardian shortly after the event, Offor explained,”Globally, about 1.6m people die of tuberculosis, this applies to Nigeria and Cross River State. The prevalence of tuberculosis is 219 per 100,000 people. This prevalence applies to all countries.
“In Cross River State, we report between 1200 to 1500 cases of tuberculosis every quarter, so in a year, we make an average of 4500 to about 5000, this is less than the number we expect to report every year.
“We are expected to notify about 8000 cases per year, but in a situation where we report 4500 or 5000 per year, it means that there are shots that fall about 3500 or 4000 which means that many cases of TB are missing and most of these missing cases are found in our rural communities. Perm Sec. disclosed.
But he noted that the good news is that many efforts are being made to identify missing cases through finding active cases with the help of communities and implementing partners like USAID, Aksi Terobosan and others.
Speaking of this year’s theme; ‘Yes, we can stop TB’, the representative of Nigeria’s Breakthrough Action, Mrs Pascaline Edem, said, “This is a message of hope, a message that shows that the effect of all people, governments, individuals, both religious leaders, as long as they are human. That’s why Breakthrough Action is an implementing partner in Cross River here today to join other partners to say that we are together in this fight and we can end TB with the support of USAID.
Speaking on behalf of the Health Commissioner, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong, Permanent. Secretary. The Ministry of Health, Dr. Pauline Obetem, said that “Tuberculosis is a disease that has become endemic, it has persisted every year, but the good news is that it can be prevented and therefore we can end it. .
“It’s not rocket science and here we have a target to end Tuberculosis, to have zero tolerance for tuberculosis by 2030, which is about seven years from now.” He assured.