Minister says halted USAID funding creating TB budget, control gap  — Features — The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News

• Says FG training 60,000 to provide integrated services 
Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Ali Pate, has said Nigeria is facing a high TB budget gap, caused by the new U.S. policy halting the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, which previously contributed to detecting nearly 50 per cent of Nigeria’s TB cases. 
  
He noted that coordinated efforts were being made by the government through a sector-wide approach to nip the situation in the bud.
  
Pate also disclosed that the Federal Government was training over 60,000 PHC staff to provide integrated services, including TB care, as part of efforts to bring TB services closer to communities, reducing barriers to access and minimising the financial burden on patients seeking care.
   
Speaking at a ministerial press briefing to commemorate the 2025 World TB Day, yesterday, in Abuja, Pate noted that TB remained a significant public health challenge, both globally and in Nigeria, adding that the 2024 World Health Organisation (WHO) Global TB Report estimated that 10.8 million people worldwide developed TB in 2023, with Nigeria accounting for approximately 4.6 per cent of the cases, positioning the country among the high TB burden countries. 
  
He observed that Nigeria was also among the 10 countries with the triple burden of TB, drug-resistant TB, and HIV-associated TB, stressing that in 2023, about 71,000 Nigerians succumbed to TB. 
  
According to the minister, Nigeria still faces critical gaps in TB control, some of which include stock out of GeneXpert cartridges for TB testing, Category-1 (CAT-1) TB medications, and leprosy treatments, adding that this is a global challenge which is gradually being resolved.
  
The minister stated that the government was significantly expanding rapid molecular testing platforms for TB to advance the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda.
   

He noted that routine TB screening for outpatients was now conducted in all tertiary and many secondary health facilities, along with over 500 high-burden primary health centres (PHCs), contributing approximately 10 per cent to our 2024 TB notifications.
  
Pate noted that the government had expanded TB treatment services, increasing the number of DOTS centres from 12,606 in 2019 to approximately 23,000 in 2024, achieving about 57 per cent coverage of all health facilities in Nigeria.

He noted that the government was prioritising the use of mobile digital X-ray units equipped with artificial intelligence, operated by trained radiographers, to enhance TB screening among key and vulnerable populations, adding that about 400 mobile digital X-ray platforms had been deployed across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
  
In his remarks, the Senior Communications Manager, Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN), Ms Uzoma Nwofor, said the spread and persistence of TB in Nigeria were deeply intertwined with socioeconomic determinants, adding that poverty, malnutrition, overcrowding and inadequate access to healthcare continued to fuel the epidemic. 
 

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