Nigeria needs over $300m to bridge TB funding gap
House of Representatives Committee on Anti-Malaria, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis has summoned Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Mohammed Ali Pate, over alleged misappropriation of $300 million meant to tackle malaria since 2021.
Also, to appear before the panel within the next 72 hours is the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Daju Kachollom.
Led by Amobi Godwin Ogah, the committee threatened Kachollom with arrest if she failed to honour the invitation, having snubbed three earlier invitations.
The duo are to state their side of the story and clarify allegations of denying indigenous manufacturers from participating in the contract for procurement of insecticidal nets and other related products.
Ogah, who issued the summons during proceedings of the panel, decried Kachollom’s previous attitude to such a sensitive issue.
He warned that the committee would not tolerate the attitude of civil servants, who take the parliament for a ride.
The probe is in response to a petition from Seasons Law Firm on behalf of Rosies Textile Mills Limited, accusing the Ministry of Health and Permanent Secretary of denying indigenous manufacturers of insecticidal nets from participating in the contract for their procurement.
FOR recording 479,000 cases (19 per cent) of the 2.4 million cases of tuberculosis (TB) reported in the African region in 2022, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has charged Nigeria and other governments on the continent on increased funding for response to the disease.
Consequently, over $300 million is required to bridge the funding gap and check the ailment in Nigeria.
Addressing a pre-world TB Day press conference yesterday in Abuja, WHO National Programme Officer for TB, Dr Amos Omoniyi, observed that out of the 424,000 disease-related deaths in Africa in 2022, 97,900 (23 per cent) occurred in Nigeria.
He lamented that one person dies of TB every five minutes in the country even though the disease is preventable and curable.
Omoniyi revealed that Nigeria had a huge TB funding gap of 70 per cent in 2022 and was highly donor-dependent, as most of the funds for tackling the virus came from partners.
He added that only 50 per cent of health facilities in Nigeria provide TB, while 50 per cent are unable to provide TB services due to lack of resources.
Also speaking, Executive Director of KNCV TB Foundation Nigeria, Dr Bethrand Odume, stressed the need to accelerate efforts towards ending the disease.
He stated that though tuberculosis remains a burden in Nigeria, some strides have been made by the National Tuberculosis Leprosy and Buruli Ulcer Control programme in the country.
Odume added that this year’s theme: ‘Yes! We Can End TB’, with the slogan ‘No gree for TB, Check am o!’, conveys the urgent need to come together and ramp up the fight against the scourge to achieve commitments to end the infection by 2030.
On his part, Senior Manager and TB Lead Global Fund Project, Institute of Human Virology of Nigeria (IHVN), Dr Temitope Adetiba, who noted that a lot of Nigerians still don’t have access to TB services, said data show that over 60 per cent of the citizenry access healthcare first in the private sector, hence the institute’s engagement with patent medicine vendors, community pharmacists and traditional healers to reach more Nigerians.
He observed that over 200,000 people affected by TB have been notified through these collaborative efforts with partners across 31 states in the last five years.
