The Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN), says its collaboration with the private sector uncovered 7,888 tuberculosis (TB), cases in the country from January to September 2019.
Chief Executive Officer, IHVN, Dr. Patrick Dakum, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Wednesday in Abuja.
Dakum said that patent medicine vendors, community pharmacists, traditional birth attendants, healthcare workers, faith-based hospitals, and medical laboratory scientists, were trained and engaged to screen, diagnose and treat TB, as well as make referrals when necessary.
He said since the selection by the Country Coordinating Mechanism and the Global Fund as the first Principal Recipient for TB Public Private Mix scale up in Nigeria for 2019 and 2020, the institute had worked in 20 states.
He listed the states to include: Edo, Delta, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Oyo, Ondo, Osun, Ogun, Kogi, Niger, Sokoto, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Anambra, Enugu, Rivers, Imo and Abia.
Dakum said that the Public Private Mix project, aimed at reducing the burden of TB in the country, had covered more than 60 per cent of Nigerians who accessed health care in the private sector.
“Before now, efforts at Private-Public Mix (PPM) and engagement in TB services have been sporadic, small and short- lived. The target is to scale up tuberculosis prevention, diagnostic and treatment services through private sector engagement.
“This objective also includes increasing the involvement of the private sector to discovering TB cases from 11 per cent in 2017 to 35 per cent in 2020,’’ Dakum said.
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He disclosed that across the 20 states, the Institute was working with 2,049 Private hospitals, 414 faith-based hospitals, 377 private laboratories, and 19,041 patent medicine vendors, community pharmacists and traditional birth attendants.
“With funding from the Global Fund, performance-based incentives are given to these collaborators in the private sector.
“Each Local Government Tuberculosis Supervisor works with a Linkage Coordinator that ensures that positive TB cases are referred to facilities where they can receive free TB treatment.
“We call on everyone who has been coughing for two weeks or more and experiencing weight loss, fever and night sweats to take advantage of this free treatment in both public and private facilities in any of these 20 states,’’ he said.
For people living with HIV, symptoms of current cough should prompt a test for tuberculosis,” he said.
Dakum noted that IHVN was partnering with sub-recipients like: Leprosy Mission Nigeria, Damien Foundation, Belgium, Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Initiative Nigeria and German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association.
He further listed others as: Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria and KNCV Nigeria, all other bodies implementing the public private project in the states.
