The North West Zonal Coordinator for Nigeria’s tuberculosis programme, Mr Isiah Danssaallah, has expressed concern that the country’s tuberculosis response is entering a decisive and defining moment.
Speaking on this year’s World Tuberculosis Day in Kaduna, Danssaallah said: “While we acknowledge the Federal Government for sustaining policy direction, coordination, and an enabling environment for TB control, the most urgent challenge before us today is no longer policy but resources.”
He lamented that the TB response in Nigeria is underfunded, noting that over 70 per cent of the national TB funding gap remains unmet. With heavy reliance on external donors, the system is increasingly fragile at a time when global support is declining.
The coordinator explained: “Policy shifts that began during the administration of Donald Trump triggered reductions in global health financing, and the ripple effects continue to affect countries like Nigeria. This means one thing: Nigeria must now take full financial responsibility for its TB response urgently.”
He observed that in 2026, across states, the most immediate and dangerous gaps are insufficient funding for TB medicines, weak procurement of laboratory commodities and diagnostic supplies, and over-dependence on donor-funded supply chains.
Delayed or inconsistent budget releases at state level, according to him, are not abstract problems but directly determine whether a patient is diagnosed, treated, and cured.
He called on state governments to take responsibility for procuring TB medicines and laboratory commodities, including first-line and second-line TB drugs, GeneXpert cartridges and other diagnostic consumables, microscopy and laboratory reagents, as well as logistics and supply chain support, saying that “no TB programme can function without these essentials.”
He explained that relying solely on donors for these critical components is no longer sustainable and increasingly unrealistic, stressing that the cost of inaction would be severe.
According to him, patients arriving at facilities may find no medicines, suspected cases could go undiagnosed due to lack of test kits, treatment interruptions would increase, drug-resistant TB would spread, and preventable deaths would rise, which could lead to system failure.
The coordinator urged state governors, commissioners of health, State Houses of Assembly, and budget and planning authorities to take urgent and measurable steps in 2026 to allocate dedicated budget lines for TB commodities.
