The federal government has promised to explore all avenues to ensure more resources are mobilized for the fight against Tuberculosis in the country.
The commitment followed the visit from a high-level team on domestic resource mobilization to the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire in Abuja on Thursday.
The minister revealed that a collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, the parliament, and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation will immediately be set in motion to see that the needed funds to tackle the spread of Tuberculosis are generated locally.
Earlier, the team lead, Dr. Lucica Dittu of the Stop TB Partnership in Geneva outlined the challenges facing the fight against TB including a huge financial gap, poor diagnostics, and the risk of DR-TB infection becoming a community transmission issue, and the issue of childhood TB is on the increase.
She also raised the need for Nigeria to prioritise diagnosis through priority funding by state governments, have more TB representatives on the CCM, and ensure an online live data platform where the progress in case finding and treatment can be centrally monitored.
Also in the team, Dr. Queen Ogbuji, the Acting Board Chair of Stop TB Partnership in Nigeria insisted that changing the narrative of financial funding for TB will require the joint effort of lawmakers, the Finance ministry as well as the Ministry of Health.
She tasked the government to provide accommodation for intervention agencies to ensure that financial support from the Global Fund will be adequately utilised in the fight against Tuberculosis.
