Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.compassnews.net/Ng/index...deadliest-disease&catid=42:commune&Itemid=796
Tuberculosis: The second deadliest disease
Monday, 22 February 2010 00:00 Imaobong Udoh
IBRAHIM Umoru, a 29-year-old man, lives with HIV/AIDS. His fight against the dreaded disease has been courageous and he is determined to live.
However, he also lives with tuberculosis (TB), a debilitating disease that often infects people living with HIV/AIDS.
?I do not fear HIV/AIDS that has no cure. But I fear TB that has a cure but which kills faster than lightning and HIV/AIDS,? Umoru disclosed this last year at a tuberculosis awareness campaign at the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan.
On January 27, there was a report on the outbreak of tuberculosis as it hit prisons in Lagos State as no fewer than 56 victims were currently receiving intensive medical treatment at the Ikoyi Prisons.
Investigation showed that health personnel and inmates in the state are now very apprehensive that the outbreak may become unmanageable if urgent steps are not taken to provide some basic facilities, especially equipment needed for immediate diagnosis as well as isolation cells.
Report also says that no fewer than 2,500 people are yearly affected by tuberculosis in Edo State.
However, the state government is said to be making frantic efforts to engage the German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association to control the scourge.
Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was reported to have disclosed this during the ground-breaking ceremony of the new chest clinic for the Central Hospital, Auchi in Etsako West Local Government.
The multi-million naira project is the initiative of the Chevron Oil Plc, FAMFA Oil Limited, PetroBras, Statoil and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Oshiomhole also said that about N1.7 billion had been set aside in the state budget this year to ensure improved and quality health care delivery system.
According to the governor, who spoke at the event through his deputy, Dr Pius Odudu, all the states in the country have a role to play in complementing Federal Government?s drive for quality health care and the fight against the spread of deadly diseases in the country.
He described tuberculosis as a chronic disease, which if not adequately checked, will kill many people within a short period of time.
Also, the General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs of Star Deep Water Petroleum, a subsidiary of Chevron, Femi Odumabo, who spoke through Umaru Ribadu, explained that the project was part of the company?s three-pronged approach to encourage qualitative health care delivery in the country and to serve as a specialist centre for the treatment of tuberculosis and other chest diseases in the state.
Medical experts have estimated that 380,000 cases of tuberculosis are recorded in Nigeria annually, making the nation the fourth among the 22 countries afflicted with the disease.
According to research, TB has become a global phenomenon ravaging millions of people, with more than two billion people, a third of the world population, infected by it.
The disease mainly affects persons in their productive ages (25 to 44 years) with a negative impact on the country?s human development agenda.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated eight million people worldwide get sick with TB, while it kills two million each year.
An undiagnosed and untreated patient, it adds, can infect between 12 and 15 persons annually. The disease is characterised by prolonged and persistent cough that may be associated with chest pain, breathing difficulty and coughing out blood.
WHO also disclosed that resistance is a major public health problem that threatens the success of the recommended method of treating TB.
The health organisation estimated that there are nearly 500,000 new cases of Multi-Drug Resistance (MDR-TB) a year.
According to experts, treatment for an individual with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis costs $7,000 (about N1.05 million) a year.
It has also been discovered that tuberculosis kills nearly 5,000 people every day. It killed 1.8 million in 2008 alone, according to the latest estimates from WHO.
TB is second to HIV as the leading infectious killer of adults worldwide. It accounts for more deaths among women than all other causes of maternal mortality combined and is the leading infectious cause of death among people with HIV/AIDS.
The body?s immune system may restrain the disease, but it does not destroy it. While some people with this latent infection will never develop active TB, five to 10 per cent of carriers will become sick in their lifetime.
Tuberculosis attacks the respiratory system and other organs, destroying body tissue. The disease is contagious, spreading through the air by coughing, sneezing, or even talking.
Overcoming such barriers, according to WHO, is more important to combating the dreaded disease. Last year, the WHO-approved second-line drugs (required for the treatment of this kind of TB) arrived in the country for the treatment of 80 patients, while a specialised ward for MDR-TB was opened in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and a 30-bed ward has just been completed at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.
Statistics on the knowledge of MDR-TB in Nigeria is not available, and as a result, treatment has not been accurate. This has created lapses in national TB control.
According to experts, one of the aims of the six-month surveillance is to properly identify MDR-TB, and determine its prevalence to ensure treatment accuracy.
They also explained that since MDR-TB is very difficult to treat, its drugs must always be available to avoid a break in treatment order which could lead to a virtually untreatable form of the disease called extensively drug resistant TB.
The Chairman, National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Committee, Dr Oni Idigbe, disclosed in a statement that, ?it is more difficult to treat MDR-TB than it is to treat ordinary TB. The second-line drugs are very potent, more expensive, and require more discipline, so we can?t afford to be careless. Once we commence treatment on a patient, we must achieve 100 per cent success.?
He explained that tuberculosis is a communicable disease caused by any of several species of mycobacterium referred to as tubercle bacillus which was characterised by prolonged and persistent cough that may be associated with other symptoms and signs such as sweating at night, weight loss, chest pain, loss of appetite, coughing out blood, difficulty in breathing and fever.
Idigbe noted that tuberculosis of the lungs is the most common form of the disease as well as the only form of tuberculosis that could be transmitted from person to person.
He stressed that the disease could also affect any other part of the human body.
Adding his voice, Dr Julius Akanmu, a medical practitioner, noted in a report that Global concern for TB is compounded by the high HIV/AIDS prevalence and its rate of co-infection with tuberculosis.
Statistics has shown that one-third of the more than 40 million People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) are co-infected with TB, majority of them in poor countries.
According to Akanmu, the treatment of TB requires strict and consistent treatment for between six and nine months, while HIV/AIDS requires much longer period.
WHO believes that an efficient and effective laboratory service will help Nigeria provide at least one sputum microscopy laboratory to every 100,000 population.
This is important because of the recent MDR threat or the Extensive Drug Resistant TB (XDR-TB) which constitutes a major problem in some parts of Africa.
Medical practitioners say with adequate and regular treatment, the incidence of TB can be reduced drastically in Nigeria. But they also submit that one-fifth of the world population, including Nigeria, has yet to have access to necessary health-related services.
It, therefore, behoves the authorities to provide and administer the right medications to the victims, while ensuring that the theme of this year?s celebration, ?TB anywhere is TB everywhere?, is taken seriously.
Tuberculosis: The second deadliest disease
Monday, 22 February 2010 00:00 Imaobong Udoh
IBRAHIM Umoru, a 29-year-old man, lives with HIV/AIDS. His fight against the dreaded disease has been courageous and he is determined to live.
However, he also lives with tuberculosis (TB), a debilitating disease that often infects people living with HIV/AIDS.
?I do not fear HIV/AIDS that has no cure. But I fear TB that has a cure but which kills faster than lightning and HIV/AIDS,? Umoru disclosed this last year at a tuberculosis awareness campaign at the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan.
On January 27, there was a report on the outbreak of tuberculosis as it hit prisons in Lagos State as no fewer than 56 victims were currently receiving intensive medical treatment at the Ikoyi Prisons.
Investigation showed that health personnel and inmates in the state are now very apprehensive that the outbreak may become unmanageable if urgent steps are not taken to provide some basic facilities, especially equipment needed for immediate diagnosis as well as isolation cells.
Report also says that no fewer than 2,500 people are yearly affected by tuberculosis in Edo State.
However, the state government is said to be making frantic efforts to engage the German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association to control the scourge.
Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was reported to have disclosed this during the ground-breaking ceremony of the new chest clinic for the Central Hospital, Auchi in Etsako West Local Government.
The multi-million naira project is the initiative of the Chevron Oil Plc, FAMFA Oil Limited, PetroBras, Statoil and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Oshiomhole also said that about N1.7 billion had been set aside in the state budget this year to ensure improved and quality health care delivery system.
According to the governor, who spoke at the event through his deputy, Dr Pius Odudu, all the states in the country have a role to play in complementing Federal Government?s drive for quality health care and the fight against the spread of deadly diseases in the country.
He described tuberculosis as a chronic disease, which if not adequately checked, will kill many people within a short period of time.
Also, the General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs of Star Deep Water Petroleum, a subsidiary of Chevron, Femi Odumabo, who spoke through Umaru Ribadu, explained that the project was part of the company?s three-pronged approach to encourage qualitative health care delivery in the country and to serve as a specialist centre for the treatment of tuberculosis and other chest diseases in the state.
Medical experts have estimated that 380,000 cases of tuberculosis are recorded in Nigeria annually, making the nation the fourth among the 22 countries afflicted with the disease.
According to research, TB has become a global phenomenon ravaging millions of people, with more than two billion people, a third of the world population, infected by it.
The disease mainly affects persons in their productive ages (25 to 44 years) with a negative impact on the country?s human development agenda.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated eight million people worldwide get sick with TB, while it kills two million each year.
An undiagnosed and untreated patient, it adds, can infect between 12 and 15 persons annually. The disease is characterised by prolonged and persistent cough that may be associated with chest pain, breathing difficulty and coughing out blood.
WHO also disclosed that resistance is a major public health problem that threatens the success of the recommended method of treating TB.
The health organisation estimated that there are nearly 500,000 new cases of Multi-Drug Resistance (MDR-TB) a year.
According to experts, treatment for an individual with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis costs $7,000 (about N1.05 million) a year.
It has also been discovered that tuberculosis kills nearly 5,000 people every day. It killed 1.8 million in 2008 alone, according to the latest estimates from WHO.
TB is second to HIV as the leading infectious killer of adults worldwide. It accounts for more deaths among women than all other causes of maternal mortality combined and is the leading infectious cause of death among people with HIV/AIDS.
The body?s immune system may restrain the disease, but it does not destroy it. While some people with this latent infection will never develop active TB, five to 10 per cent of carriers will become sick in their lifetime.
Tuberculosis attacks the respiratory system and other organs, destroying body tissue. The disease is contagious, spreading through the air by coughing, sneezing, or even talking.
Overcoming such barriers, according to WHO, is more important to combating the dreaded disease. Last year, the WHO-approved second-line drugs (required for the treatment of this kind of TB) arrived in the country for the treatment of 80 patients, while a specialised ward for MDR-TB was opened in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and a 30-bed ward has just been completed at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.
Statistics on the knowledge of MDR-TB in Nigeria is not available, and as a result, treatment has not been accurate. This has created lapses in national TB control.
According to experts, one of the aims of the six-month surveillance is to properly identify MDR-TB, and determine its prevalence to ensure treatment accuracy.
They also explained that since MDR-TB is very difficult to treat, its drugs must always be available to avoid a break in treatment order which could lead to a virtually untreatable form of the disease called extensively drug resistant TB.
The Chairman, National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Committee, Dr Oni Idigbe, disclosed in a statement that, ?it is more difficult to treat MDR-TB than it is to treat ordinary TB. The second-line drugs are very potent, more expensive, and require more discipline, so we can?t afford to be careless. Once we commence treatment on a patient, we must achieve 100 per cent success.?
He explained that tuberculosis is a communicable disease caused by any of several species of mycobacterium referred to as tubercle bacillus which was characterised by prolonged and persistent cough that may be associated with other symptoms and signs such as sweating at night, weight loss, chest pain, loss of appetite, coughing out blood, difficulty in breathing and fever.
Idigbe noted that tuberculosis of the lungs is the most common form of the disease as well as the only form of tuberculosis that could be transmitted from person to person.
He stressed that the disease could also affect any other part of the human body.
Adding his voice, Dr Julius Akanmu, a medical practitioner, noted in a report that Global concern for TB is compounded by the high HIV/AIDS prevalence and its rate of co-infection with tuberculosis.
Statistics has shown that one-third of the more than 40 million People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) are co-infected with TB, majority of them in poor countries.
According to Akanmu, the treatment of TB requires strict and consistent treatment for between six and nine months, while HIV/AIDS requires much longer period.
WHO believes that an efficient and effective laboratory service will help Nigeria provide at least one sputum microscopy laboratory to every 100,000 population.
This is important because of the recent MDR threat or the Extensive Drug Resistant TB (XDR-TB) which constitutes a major problem in some parts of Africa.
Medical practitioners say with adequate and regular treatment, the incidence of TB can be reduced drastically in Nigeria. But they also submit that one-fifth of the world population, including Nigeria, has yet to have access to necessary health-related services.
It, therefore, behoves the authorities to provide and administer the right medications to the victims, while ensuring that the theme of this year?s celebration, ?TB anywhere is TB everywhere?, is taken seriously.