Africa-Press – Eritrea. Dar es Salaam. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there was an increase in the number of tuberculosis related (TB) deaths for the first time in a decade in 2021.
The WHO cited factors that caused the deaths including the decline in access to testing and treatments for the disease and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking on Wednesday March 23, WHO Regional Director for Africa. Dr Matshidiso Moeti, there is urgent need to invest the resources needed to strengthen the fight against the disease.
Dr Moeti said in order to achieve the goals of sustainable development there must be investment to ensure that TB services are integrated into primary health care.
“To achieve the targets of sustainable goals TB cases had to be reduced annually by 4 to 5 percent by 2020, increasing to 10 percent per year by 2025 and then up to an average of 17 percent annually in the following decade, but we have seen deaths increase in the year 2021,” she said.
Dr. Moeti said in Africa, the government contributes only 22 percent of the resources needed to provide TB services, while 44 percent lacks funding, thus undermining efforts to reduce the TB burden.
In Tanzania, new figures from health ministry show a total of 87,000 people have been diagnosed with tuberculosis and 26,800 died from the disease.
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