Sufabel made presentation during the meeting on the IDPs intervention in Gombe, Yobe and Borno State. During the conference, SCDI drew the attention of the conference delegates on the issue of Internally Displace people. The paper was very interesting and attracted some questions and comments which gives Sufabel so many opportunities in working with development partners in the area of TB in Nigeria.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE:

The National TB Conference will bring together all stakeholders in Nigeria and international partners to discuss how to end TB in Nigeria.

Tuberculosis (TB) is among Nigeria’s top priorities, being among the top 14 countries with the largest burden of drug-susceptible TB (DS-TB) disease, multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and TB/HIV co-infection according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO).

Despite incremental progress in the quality of TB treatment and care over the years as evidenced by the 85% treatment success rate and 85% uptake of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among HIV-positive TB patients, the overall TB treatment coverage remains low at 25% in 2017, and case notifications have stagnated over the past five years. This situation translates to 75% of TB patients being missed annually. Of equally great concern to the TB program is the increasing gap in access to TB services to the pediatric population and other vulnerable groups.

Funding constraints has remained the key challenge towards combatting this deadly disease in Nigeria. The implementation of National Strategic Plan, NSP, for tuberculosis, will require about $336m to address TB challenges by 2020. The estimated gap in funding the strategic plan is put at about $215m (64%). TB funding over these years has been driven by external funding sources. Stop TB Partnership Nigeria was established in 2007 to increase public awareness on TB; intensify advocacy and help mobilize additional resources (including human, technical, financial) from partners in the country and from international donors to support efforts to end TB in Nigeria.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CONFERENCE:

• Create an avenue to bring together all stakeholders in TB control, to improve synergy and to foster access to research, technologies and innovations in TB control in Nigeria.
• To stimulate new collaborations for home grown TB research and innovations
• Create awareness and promote best practices in TB programming in Nigeria
• Provide platform to foster the design of evidence based policies for improved TB control in Nigeria

During the Paper Presentation