TB: Community Referrals Increase By 119% In Q1 2020

By Royal Ibeh,

Tuberculosis (TB) patients referred from community, increased by 119 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, when compared with the first quarter of 2019. With this in mind stakeholders have called on government at all levels to integrate community systems for effective TB response in Nigeria.

Stakeholders, at a virtual per-conference of the 2020 Civil Society Accountability Forum, organized in collaboration with Stop TB Partnership Nigeria, said community systems contribute about 46 per cent of TB case finding, adding that they have the potentials to finding the missing 75 per cent of TB cases across the country.

The National Community TB Taskforce, Dr. Chijioke Osakwe said community systems like the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Community Based Organizations (CBOs), are better suited for TB case findings due to their presence in the community and interactions with community members.

“They react quickly to community needs and issues, provide direct services to communities and advocate for improved programming and policy environments, hence the need for them to be carried along for effective TB response in the country,” Osakwe adds.

Themed: “Integrating Community Systems and Strengthening for effective HIV, TB, Malaria and COVID-19 response in Nigeria, Osakwe said CBOs/CSOs have the capacity to deliver important health services available in the community as they are cost-effective and sustainable health interventions and they have the tendency to improve health outcomes in the population.

In the same vein, the Board Chair, Stop TB Nigeria, Dr Ayodele Awe, said there is an urgent need to integrate a community-based approach to finding missing TB cases across the country.

Awe said; “Integrating community system strengthening for effectively controlling HIV, TB, malaria and COVID-19 response is very important and CSOs play a prominent and important role in national development, particularly at the community level.

“For us in TB, community level is the operational level for TB and the level for the integration of diseases. It is at this level that we were told in a previous survey carried out in 2012 on TB that 75 per cent of the TB cases that we are not detecting are in the community. We need to increase our collaborative activities to ensure that we are able to detect cases.

“We are happy that some key CSOs are already working at the community level, but we are hoping that there will be a more integrated CSOs because we are still not doing well in TB detection at the community level, particularly because of COVID-19 pandemic.”

Meanwhile, TB survivors have urged TB patients/survivors to see themselves as champions and speak out in order to stop the stigmatization and discrimination at the community level.

Funke dosumu, a TB survivor said, she is glad to be given the platform to speak about TB, in order to stop the stigmatization, especially at the community level. Also, Adebola Adams, said, “if you can survive the treatment, you can survive stigma, if u can survive TB, you can survive stigma. Instead of being stigmatize, you should see yourself as a champion.”