Kaduna records 32,297 tuberculosis cases

The Kaduna State Government has said that 32,297 Tuberculosis cases were detected in the state in 2023.

The State Commissioner for Health, Umma Kaltume-Ahmed, announced this at a press conference to mark World Tuberculosis day celebration in Kaduna.

“Tuberculosis case detection in the state has increased, from 21,557 cases in 2022 to 32,297 in 2023. This represents an increase of 49.8 per cent compared to 2022,” she said.

The health commissioner said the case detection rate represented 159 per cent of the state TB case detection target.

She explained further that the development showed a significant improvement in case finding compared to 53 per cent obtained in 2022 and the improved support the State TB programme received from the state government and the development partners.

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She, however noted that tuberculosis remained one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers.

“Each day, over 4,100 people lose their lives to TB, and close to 28,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease,” she added.

Kaltume-Ahmed explained that global efforts to combat TB had saved about 66 million lives since 2000.

“However, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed years of progress made in the fight to end TB. For the first time in over a decade, TB deaths increased in 2020.

“This conveys the urgent need to invest resources to ramp up the fight against TB and achieve global leaders’ commitments to end TB,” she said.

The 2024 World TB Day themed ‘Yes, We Can End TB’ with the Slogan is ‘No Gree For TB, Check Am O’ is a follow-up call to the commitment made by global leaders at the UN high-level meeting on TB in New York four years ago to support the target to end the TB epidemic by 2030.

The campaign involves supporting the scale-up of TB access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment, sustainable financing including research and ending stigma and discrimination against people affected by TB.

She added that the government would continue supporting this initiative until every facility in the state provides TB services.

She also said the state’s treatment success rate was about 98.4 per cent indicating that the diagnosed cases of TB were managed successfully.

The commissioner however stressed that, “The fight against TB is a collective one and call on all well-meaning residents of Kaduna State and public and private organizations to join the Kaduna State Government in investing in ending TB and saving lives.