Issac Adewole, Nigeria’s minister of health, has said at least 600,000 cases of tuberculosis are reported yearly in the country.
Prof. Adewole said this at the opening of free mobile disease testing and treatment, “Wellness on Wheel”, in Abeokuta, Ogun state.
Adewole stated that five out six tuberculosis cases are unreported, adding Nigeria is fourth among African countries burdened by tuberculosis.
According to him advised that early detection was crucial for proper treatment. while undetected cases portend grave danger to the society.
“In terms of detection of the disease, Nigeria has scored the least in the world. The danger is that tuberculosis is infective and the five out of six cases undetected will infect other people and therefore our mandate is to increase case detection, so that the five missing cases will be detected and treated, hence, this unique initiative called ‘Wellness on Wheel.’
“With this innovative idea, we can diagnose tuberculosis within a very short time, at most, two hours. We can do x-ray using this vehicle, we can also detect tuberculosis cases using generic test, we will also know if the case is drug resistance type or non drug resistance type,” the minister said.
Mayowa Samuel
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