This was disclosed by the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCPO) in a fresh report.
Nigeria has been ranked 4th in the list of countries with the highest cases of tuberculosis worldwide.
This was disclosed by the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCPO) in a fresh report.
“According to the 2016 Global TB report, Nigeria has the highest TB burden in Africa and ranked 4th in the world. It is among the six countries that accounted for 60 per cent of the global burden of TB,” National Coordinator of NTBLCPO, Dr. Adebola Lawanson, stated at a press conference in Abuja.
“Other countries are India, Indonesia, China, Pakistan and South Africa. Equally, Nigeria and India accounted for 48 per cent of global TB deaths among HIV-negative people and for 43 per cent of the combined total TB deaths in HIV-negative and HIV-positive people.
“The same report also revealed that Nigeria is among the ten countries that accounted for 77 per cent of the global gap in TB case finding. In 2016, Nigeria notified less than 20 per cent of the total TB cases estimated for that year.
“Therefore, more than 80 per cent TB cases in the country are undetected, implying that, there are lots of undiagnosed TB cases in the community which serve as a reservoir for continue transmission of TB," she added.
The statistics also showed that over 80 per cent of tuberculosis cases in Nigeria were still undetected, while it claims over 1.5 million lives annually in the country.
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