By Rita Elenwo
Nigeria first Lady Oluremi Tinubu, is calling for advocacy on awareness and prevention of Tuberculosis even as she reechoed the fact that every child deserves a chance at a healthy and fulfilling life.
She said this at a side event organised by Concordia at the ongoing 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The First Lady spoke at the two separate sessions on the importance of innovation towards achieving an AIDS-free generation and health standards and investment towards effectively financing the eradication of tuberculosis.
On tuberculosis and AIDS in children, she said Nigeria’s advocacy, especially at the national, state and community levels would be pursued vigorously as the country has no reason to have high statistics of prevalence in both areas.
Mrs Tinubu emphasised that with the heightened drive of the President Bola Tinubu Administration in the health sector, she will be advocating enhanced actions by the wives of governors from the states of the Federation to take the campaign about awareness and prevention to the grassroots.
“Innovative approaches can be employed to develop effective methods for HIV prevention. Educational technology hubs, educational apps and digital platforms can all be used to disseminate accurate information specific to HIV care and control.
“Advancement in testing facilitates early detection and prompt linkage to care thus preventing progression and transmission”.
“Creative and culturally tailored age-appropriate interventions using technology and social media can promote and amplify safer sexual and reproductive practice.”
The First Lady used the opportunity to explain that in Nigeria, there is a robust programme for combating TB through the National TB and Leprosy Control Programme which is domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Health supervised by the Minister for Health.
She said the administration of President Tinubu has come up with the Renewed Hope Agenda with the commitment to restructure the health system in the country through improved financing, provision of modern equipment for diagnosis, capacity building, training of health care workers and transparency in governance as it regards TB response and health care delivery as a whole.
“We need to get people to speak up and know that early detection makes it treatable and we need to see that stigmatization is removed,” she said.
Tinubu was one of the panellists who spoke on strategies to advance global health standards and investments towards effectively financing the eradication of tuberculosis.
Other panellists included Lucica Ditiu and Jay Rajda who both harped on the need for sustainable partnerships and improved funding.
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