Stakeholders call for community approach to end tuberculosis challenges

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Concerned stakeholders in the fight against tuberculosis in the country have called for a community approach to addressing tuberculosis challenges in the country.

Specifically, Board Chairman of the Stop TB Nigeria, Dr. Ayodele Awe, said there is an urgent need to integrate a community-based approach to finding missing TB across the country.

Speaking recently during a virtual pre-conference of this year’s Civil Society Accountability Forum, organised in collaboration with Stop TB Partnership Nigeria, he said integrating community system strengthening for effectively controlling HIV, TB, malaria and COVID-19 response is very important.

At the programme themed; “Integrating community systems and strengthening for efective HIV, TB, malaria and COVID-19 response in Nigeria, Awe said Civil society plays a prominent and important role in national development, particularly at the community level.

“For us in TB, community level is the operational level for TB and the level for the integration of diseases.
“It is at this level that we were told in a previous survey carried out in 2012 on TB, that 75 per cent of the TB cases that we are not detecting are in the community, and we don’t know them.”

He called for the need to increase collaborative activities to ensure effective detection of cases.

On his part, the Executive Director of KNCV TB Foundation Nigeria, Dr. Bethrand Odume, emphasized on the the need to for better approach towards addressing the challenges.

He said the country needs the best strategy in tackling tuberculosis.