DATA, in response to awareness against tuberculosis, have shown that Lagos State has recorded 4,621 new case notifications in the first quarter of 2023, while five local government areas are hot spots with the most vulnerable cases.
According to media reports, the Deputy Director & Programme Manager of the State Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Buruli Ulcer Control Programme in the Lagos State Ministry of Health, Olusola Daniel Sokoya, said: “Alimosho has notified 477 incident cases, Ajeromi -Ifelodun with 367 cases, Ikorodu has 366 incident cases, these three LGAs are at risk due to high population. Additionally, Mushin also recorded 308 incident cases, Ojo recorded 292 cases, and 278 cases were recorded in Badagry.
“Lagos State accounts for 11 per cent of TB cases in Nigeria with an estimated 54,000 persons projected to be suffering from TB based on the national incidence rate of 219 per 100,000 population.”
Sokoya made this known at a one-day Media Training held recently in Lagos, organised by the Institute of Human Virology (IHVN) in collaboration with Breakthrough Action-Nigeria (BA-N).
The media training was aimed at building the capacity of media practitioners and health producers on key concepts in tuberculosis awareness and control so that they can use the knowledge to create content on tuberculosis.
According to Sokoya, TB remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers and is the commonest cause of death among persons living with HIV. According to the Global TB Report 2022, about 10.9 million people fell ill due to TB in 2021, and 1.5 million deaths occurred due to TB infection.
He said that the Lagos State Government has put in place the needed resources to ensure the availability of free TB services in most health facilities in the state, including GeneXpert machines.
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