World TB Day 2002 - In the News

Xinhua News Agency
Headline: Nigeria Marks World TB Day
Dateline: LAGOS, March 24 2002

Nigeria announced a serial of anti- tuberculosis programs on Sunday to mark the World Tuberculosis (TB) Day of this year.

According to a statement issued by the Health Ministry available here, the Nigerian government will use Information and Communication Education scheme to remove the stigma attached to TB to encourage patients to come out for treatment. The Health Ministry is also planning to organize a seminar for mass media practitioners with the theme "Empowering the Mass Media on Strategies for Tuberculosis Control" in April as part of Nigeria's year-long campaign against TB, the statement said.

Meanwhile, the ministry is determined to import substantial quantities of anti-TB drugs during the year to help expand the effective control of the disease through the country, the document added.

The control of TB along with other diseases such as HIV/AIDS, leprosy and malaria is one of the central objectives of President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration in the health sector.

The World Tuberculosis Day comes up on March 24 of every year, for which the World Health Organization (WHO) has adopted "Stop Tuberculosis Fight Poverty" as the theme of this year.

The WHO said TB kills some 2 million people annually around the world. In Africa, at least 600,000 people died of the disease in 2000 while some 1.5 million new TB cases are screened every year.

The WHO has adopted global TB control targets of 2005, during which countries are expected to have detected 70 percent of people with TB and successfully treated 85 percent of the cases.

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