No fewer than 50,000 Nigerians who have tested positive for tuberculosis (TB) are yet to begin treatment due to inadequate funding and limited health resources, the Global Fund has disclosed.
This alarming revelation was made on Monday in Abuja by the Executive Secretary of the Global Fund Country Coordination Mechanism (CCM), Mr. Ibrahim Tajudeen, during the 11th quarterly meeting of the Ministerial Oversight Committee (MOC) on the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF).
Tajudeen warned that while significant strides had been made in detecting TB cases across the country, the inability to promptly treat diagnosed individuals poses a major threat to public health.
“Screening alone is not enough. Without timely treatment, we risk fueling the very epidemic we seek to control,” he said. “We have screened over 50,000 TB-positive individuals, but limited resources have stalled treatment for many of them.”
Despite conducting over 25.5 million TB tests using modern diagnostic tools and procuring 370 digital X-ray machines, many of which have been delivered across the country, Tajudeen said a critical funding gap is hindering treatment delivery and threatening to roll back gains made in TB control.
He added that six regional reference laboratories are currently being upgraded to improve diagnostic capacity, while the government has received $95.5 million in donor commitments to sustain ongoing interventions.
Beyond TB, Tajudeen noted that the Global Fund is also supporting malaria prevention efforts, with over 16.6 million insecticide-treated nets distributed across Nigeria.
However, health advocates warn that without urgent government action and sustained funding, the country’s efforts to curb TB — one of the leading infectious disease killers in Nigeria — may falter They also emphasised the risk of increased transmission if thousands of diagnosed individuals remain untreated.
The Global Fund, in collaboration with the Nigerian government and other partners, continues to support programs aimed at fighting HIV, TB, and malaria.
But experts stress that stronger collaboration and budgetary commitment are critical to closing the treatment gap and saving lives.
Nigeria currently ranks among the highest TB-burdened countries in the world, and health experts are calling on both federal and state authorities to treat the crisis with urgency.
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