Summary
In 2018, Heads of States and Governments met in New York at a UN High Level Meeting (HLM) on Tuberculosis (TB). At the meeting ambitious targets and commitments for ending TB epidemic by 2030 were set and described in the UN Declaration on TB(link is external)(opens in a new tab).
The Declaration recognized that, despite being preventable and curable, 40% of people with TB disease globally miss out on quality care, including life-saving medicines. Section 30 of the Declaration specifically recognized that finding undetected and untreated men as well as empowering women and girls are critical to finding the undetected people with TB(link is external)(opens in a new tab). Nigeria faces significant challenges to finding the ‘missing’ people with TB: in 2018, 76%(link is external)(opens in a new tab) of all people with TB disease in Nigeria were missed by the public health systems. In 2020, this percentage had reduced but was still unacceptably high at 70%(link is external)(opens in a new tab). The reasons for this are manifold and link to the country’s particular socio-cultural context as well as the characteristics of TB case-finding, treatment and care. Thus, Nigeria is in urgent need of new ideas to help make TB diagnosis and care more welcoming, accessible, and equitable to men, women and children.
