ABUJA – On Monday, August 11, 2025, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Health Services and Environment Secretariat, in partnership with Stop TB Partnership Nigeria, the National Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Buruli Ulcer Control Programme (NTBLCP), and MobiHealth, launched a telehealth initiative at Dutsen Makaranta Primary Health Care Centre (PHC) to address Nigeria’s high tuberculosis (TB) burden, as reported by Vanguard. The event, attended by First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu (represented by Kwara State First Lady Amb. Folake Abdulrazak), FCT Health Mandate Secretary Dr. Dolapo Fasawe, and MobiHealth CEO Dr. Funmi Adewale, introduced advanced TB diagnostic machines that reduce diagnosis time from weeks to hours and integrate telehealth for 24/7 access to doctors and medicines.
Senator Tinubu, who pledged ₦1 billion through the Renewed Hope Initiative in February 2025 to fight TB, reaffirmed her commitment to eradicating it by 2030, urging stakeholders to mobilize resources, given Nigeria’s sixth-highest global TB burden with 452,000 cases annually and one-third undiagnosed, per WHO 2024 data. Dr. Adewale highlighted the initiative’s role in strengthening PHCs, enabling online evaluations and immediate prescriptions, while Dr. Stella Richard of MobiHealth noted that telehealth addresses Nigeria’s doctor shortage (2.4 doctors per 10,000 people, per 2023 WHO data) by connecting patients to global doctors, including language-specific care, without requiring smartphones. X posts from @StopTBNigeria (August 11, 2025) praised the initiative’s potential to diagnose 10,000 cases monthly, though @HealthWatchNG cautioned that funding and infrastructure gaps, with only 24% of PHCs fully functional (NPHCDA 2024), could limit impact.
Leave a Reply