By Abdulsalam Muhammad

Kano—Federal Government has so far spent about N430 million in the last 10 months on the control and treatment of Tuberculosis in the country, the Minister of Health, Professor Onyebu-chi Chukwu, has said.

Chukwu spoke in Kano State during the commissioning of the Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment Centre, an infectious disease hospital, noting that the collaborative effort of both the state and Federal Government, and  international donor agencies was yielding the right dividends.

The minister, who was represented on the occasion by a Director in the Ministry, Mr. Joshua Osibanye, said the multilateral effort was sequel to United Nations statistics that ranked Nigeria 10th among high TB burden countries globally.

He said the World Health Organisation, WHO, 2012 report estimated that no fewer than 3,491 TB cases occur in Nigeria annually, explaining that MDR-TB is a severe form of TB that is resistant to the conventional treatment.

He said: “MDR-TB is more expensive to treat in specialised centres like the one being commissioned today, and it also takes a longer time for the treatment to be completed than the ordinary TB.”