Medical experts working on the possibility of reducing the spread of tuberculosis in Nigeria and the Sub-Sahara region have identified over consumption of indomie as added cause of tuberculosis among growing children and the young generation.
The group, in a meeting, Monday, April 11, 2015 argued that ordinarily children of well to do parents are expected not to be infected with the tuberculosis but over consumption of Indomie Noodles by city children has been observed as a booster to the growth of the disease in Nigeria.
Leader of the medical experts in Delta, Dr. Ufuoma Aduh, Delta State Tuberculosis Programme Officer, said though the disease has threatened much lives and many have died, the group is working round the clock to curtail the spread, noting that the World Health organization (WHO) has projected 200 years from 2015 to eradicate the disease globally.
Dr. Aduh said though the WHO has projected 200 years to end the disease, with concerted effort and collaboration of all stakeholders in the Nigeria project, tuberculosis could be brought to the barest minimum within the next 20 years.
To this end, the group made up of civil society groups and health care providers are calling on all stakeholders and the Nigerian government to join in the collaborative fight to bring the deadline set to reality.
Dr. Aduh said, “At national, state, local and community levels, we are coming together to fight the disease. We are moving from passive case finding to actively finding those who actually have tuberculosis. The strategy is to engage all stakeholders in the Nigerian project.
“We need to do research to find out what are we not doing well that we need to do better. How can we develop vaccines that can prevent people from having TB. These are strategies being deployed at global and national levels so that we can meet the target of ending TB in 2035.”
Aduh said globally, not less than three million people die annually from tuberculosis, adding that it is more prevalent in developing countries like Nigeria.
He said Nigeria has estimated cases of 600,000 people being infected by the disease annually but the team of doctors fighting tuberculosis is able to attend to only 90,000 persons annually.
While decrying the rate of deaths from tuberculosis in Nigeria, the body condemned the poor attitude of government towards the disease, insisting that government’s poor attitude towards ending the disease was a challenge in the fight against the disease.
