First Lady of Kwara State and advocacy Ambassador of tuberculosis in Kwara State, Dr. Olufolake Abdulrazaq has decried the high burden of Tuberculosis is in the state.
She said the state contributes significantly to the burden of the disease in Nigeria as a whole apart from the well over 2,500 missed cases.
She stated this in her keynote address at a one-day training course on TB for Community Pharmacists in Ilorin, recently.
The training was a collaboration between Kwara Government, USAID, and an NGO Sustaining Health Outcomes Through Private Sector (SHOPS PLUS).
Abdulrazaq commended the Kwara TB team for not allowing the peculiarities of these times to distort the progression of their work in the state.
She noted that Tuberculosis is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects the lungs.
She noted that Kwara has no doubt contributed to the burden of Tuberculosis in Nigeria with case notification of 35 percent of annual target and 65 percent missing cases in 2018 alone.
“These cases tend to have a multiplying effect on the disease burden among children as one smear-positive case has the probability of infecting an additional 15 to 20 persons over the year.”
She urged that all hands must be on deck to ensure that an end is put to the spread of the disease in communities, the state, and Nigeria at large.
She commended Governor of Kwara State, Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq for always making the health and wellbeing of the people his core concern.
The First Lady equally commended the Kwara State Ministry of Health and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for working tirelessly to ensure a successful session.
She restated the commitment of her office and the Ajike peoples Support Centre in creating awareness and sensitizing the people on the need to get themselves tested in the event that they feel any symptom of the disease.
