Experts explain how to curb TB

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Chief Medical Director, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Complex, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Professor Sanya Adejuyigbe, has canvassed increased support for tuberculosis (TB) detection, treatment and prevention.

Professor Adejuyigbe spoke at the 2013 World TB day celebration, which was organised by the Respiratory Medicine unit of the Department of Medicine of the hospital.
Professor Adejuyigbe, who was represented at the occasion by the acting Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee of the hospital, Dr Kayode Olabamiji, described TB as an important infectious disease that was very difficult to treat despite its devastating effect on the body.
He stated: “This is a communicable diseas, the control of which the whole world has to come together for. The world has become a global village, so every country is important in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of TB.”
Dr Iziegbe Irabor, a senior registrar at the Department of Medicine, who noted that TB was more of a social problem than a medical one, stated that TB had become an index to measure the economic status of any country.
The expert said that TB was already threatening the next generation as it killed a million people world over in 2011, inclusive of half a million women and 64,500 children, based on the World Health Organisation(WHO) estimates.
Dr Irabor, who noted that prevalence, morbidity and mortality of TB in Nigeria had remained the same since 2003 despite monies committed to it, expressed concern that people in the reproductive age group were most affected by the TB.
“In a 10-year review study we did in this hospital, we found that those affected by TB are those within age 14 and 40 years,” he said.
Dr Olufemi Oduwole, a consultant pulmonologist, OAUTH complex, Ile-Ife, stressed the need for accurate diagnosis and treatment of TB to ensure it did not spread to other people in the community.
Dr Oduwole declared that a challenge to TB treatment in Nigerian was that many hospitals lacked facilities to promptly detect and diagnose TB.
Meanwhile, Dr Olayemi Awopeju, a consultant pulmonologist at the hospital, pointed out that TB and HIV were two diseases that now coexist in many individuals, stressing that TB could not be tackled except attention was also paid to HIV.
According to Dr Awopeju, “one fuels the other. As at now, TB is the commonest cause of death in people with HIV.”
She lamented that despite the importance of HIV drugs in delaying deaths in individuals with both HIV and TB, between 15 and 20 per cent of them access HIV medications.
Dr Awopeju insisted that the government should plan ahead to own the HIV treatment because soon there might not be donor funds for HIV treatment in the country.
Earlier, Mrs Kehinde Adepoju, the matron in-charge of the TB clinic at the hospital stated that adherence to TB medication, stigma and myths such as TB was caused by a spirit, still  prevail in the community and hindering putting a stop to TB spread in the country.