Tuberculosis, a germ caused by “Mycobacterium” can kill 18 Nigerians in an hour. It is an airborne infectious disease which has similarities with COVID-19.
The germ, which is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide has placed Nigeria among the 14 countries with a high burden of TB. This indicates that two out of every 1,000 Nigerians suffer Tuberculosis.
One untreated case of TB can infect 10 to 15 persons nearby and mainly affects the human lungs.
These were revealed by Mr Eze Eze during the three-hour training organized by Breakthrough Action in collaboration with USAID.
The training was held virtually (online) for a cross-section of journalists and other media practitioners in the South-South region, yesterday.
According to Eze, the training was aimed at detecting the differences and similarities between the ravaging COVID-19 and Tuberculosis (TB) and enlighten people on ways to handle TB, medications to apply and how to avoid it.
His words, “According to the WHO Global Report, TB is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and Nigeria is said to be among the 14 countries with high burden of TB.”
“So, two out of every 1000 Nigerians suffer TB and one case of untreated TB can infect 10 to 15 persons nearby and can kill 18 Nigerians every hour”, he said.
