World Tuberculosis Day is a international event that aims to raise public awareness of tuberculosis and the efforts made to prevent and treat the disease. This event is held on March 24 each year and is promoted by organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO). It is also an opportunity to mobilise political and social commitment for further progress in efforts to end it. The day, held annually on March 24, marks the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch detected the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus. This was a first step towards diagnosing and curing tuberculosis. World Tuberculosis Day, however, can be traced back to 1982, when the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease launched World TB Day on March 24 that year, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Dr Koch’s discovery.
In 1996, WHO joined the union and other organisations to promote World TB Day. The Stop TB Partnership, called the Stop TB Initiative at the time of its inception, was established in 1998. It is a network of organisations and countries fighting tuberculosis. WHO works with this partnership on efforts to support the activities and events that take place on World Tuberculosis Day each year.
2017 is the second year of a two-year “Unite to End TB” campaign for World TB Day. This year, WHO will place a special focus on uniting efforts to “Leave No One Behind”, including actions to address stigma, discrimination, marginalisation and overcome barriers to access care.
The Sustainable Development agenda embraces the principle of ensuring no one is left behind in an effort to transform the world and improve people’s lives for the better. Addressing the health needs of the disadvantaged, the marginalised, those out of reach of the health system will mean improving access to health services for everyone. This is essential in order to reach the target of ending TB by 2030 as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the WHO End TB Strategy.
World TB Day provides the platform for affected persons and communities, civil society organisations, health-care providers, policy makers, development partners and others to advocate, discuss and plan further collaboration to fulfil the promise of reaching all people with quality TB prevention and care services, as well as enabling TB prevention through multi-sectoral development efforts.
In its report last year, WHO raised an alarm to draw the attention of the international community to the deadly prevalence of the killer disease. According to that report, 10.4 million people fell ill with TB and there were 1.8 million TB deaths in 2015, making it the top infectious killer worldwide. This disease is deeply rooted in populations where human rights and dignity are limited.
The world body indicated in the report that while anyone can contract TB, it, however, thrives more among people living in poverty, communities and groups that are marginalised, and other vulnerable populations.
Tuberculosis is an infectious bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs. It is transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the disease. WHO in its years of managing the disease estimates that the largest number of new TB cases in 2005 occurred in south-east Asia, which accounted for 34 percent of incident cases globally. However, the estimated incidence rate in sub-Saharan Africa is nearly twice that of south-east Asia.
In Nigeria, the day which had as its theme ‘Accelerating TB case findings in Nigeria’ was marked as the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, flagged off a Gene-Xpert Laboratory at the Kunchingoro Primary Healthcare Model Centre. The use of the Gene-Xpert MTB/RIF technology is the primary diagnostic tool for TB among all presumptive cases in the country including People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).
The minister was very optimistic that this is expected to increase the number of TB cases notified in the country. Already, the number of facilities providing GeneXpert services have been scaled up from seven health facilities in 2011 to 318 facilities in 2016; and efforts are still ongoing to scale up more facilities in 2017 to achieve the target of having one machine per LGA across the country.
In our opinion, while the Nigerian government is fighting to eradicate the disease, it must also focus its attention on factors that cause it as contained in the WHO report.