…As Institute Seeks To Eradicate Scourge In Children

The Institute of Human Virol
ogy, Nigeria, has called for increased awareness on childhood tuberculosis to stop the spread of the disease in children.
Chief Executive Officer of the institute, Dr Patrick Dakum, told newsmen yesterday in Abuja that ignorance remains a major challenge in the effort to eradicate the disease in children.
Dakum noted that in several cases, parents and guardians mistook tuberculosis in a child to common cold or fever adding that appropriate diagnosis of tuberculosis in children had remained a major barrier to effective treatment.
“Most times when a child has fever many parents keep the child at home or may just commence treatment for fever unknown to them that it could be TB, because awareness is low. “One very important thing is to increase awareness, especially in cases where a family member has TB, there is need to carry out effective medical test on the children to ascertain the illness,’’ he said.
Dakum said the Institute would continue to support the Federal Government in controlling the spread of the disease.
According to him, the institute has supplied equipment to no fewer than six TB laboratories in the country with grants obtained from the Global Fund.
Dakum acknowledged that tuberculosis was a public health threat in most parts of the world but expressed optimism that the disease would be eliminated.
According to statistics from the Minister of State Health, Dr Khaliru Alhassan, Nigeria ranks 11th among the 22 high-burden countries that account for 80 per cent of global TB cases.
Also, the WHO Global TB report of 2013 estimated that a total of 180,000 TB cases occur annually in Nigeria.
The UN declared March 24 of every year as World TB Day to raise awareness on the disease. The theme of this year’s celebration in Nigeria is “Tuberculosis-free Nigeria: Find, Treat, Cure TB.’’