The World Tuberculosis Day was marked with fanfare and health awareness at the Wuse Market Abuja on 22nd March, 2020 by the Federal Ministry of health in conjunction with USAID and other health related NGOs. Speaking with Daily Blast during the ceremony, Mr Ikechukwu Ezenwa, the Country Manager of Human Diagnostics, “Tuberculosis is pulmonary disease that can affect anybody. It is airborne and therefore everybody is at risk because it thrives where people are crowded. It is caused by a bacteria unlike COVID-19 which is caused by a virus.”
As part of activities to mark the event, people were tested for tuberculosis and enlightened on measures to prevent the disease. Ezenwa explains that “people must get themselves tested if cough lasts for more than two weeks to avoid infecting others. TB can now be tested with state of the art laboratory equipment and the treatment is free of charge because the funding has been made available by the government and international donors.”
He also disclosed that there a more than a hundred cases of tuberculosis spread across Nigeria that requires urgent intervention.
