From Femi Mustapha and Edirin Robinson, in Kaduna
The Kaduna State Ministry of Health has revealed that over five million people in Kaduna are at risk of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) such as River Blindness, lymphatic filariasis, bilharziasis, and intestinal worms.
The Commissioner for Health, Hajiya Umma K. Ahmed, disclosed this during a press briefing on Friday at the Ministry in commemoration of the 2025 World NTDs Day.
According to her, the commemorative day aims to achieve sensitization of all Global communities on the burden of NTDs, diseases that affect more than 1 billion people across the globe, in over 149 countries.
She lamented that Africa as a continent bears half the global burden and experiences the most devastating manifestations of these diseases adding that, globally, Nigeria has the second highest burden of the diseases, with more than 120 million people living at the risk of one of the known neglected tropical diseases.
“In Kaduna, over 5 million people are at risk of River Blindness, lymphatic filariasis, bilharziasis, and intestinal worms while approaches such as preventive chemotherapy through Mass Administration of Medicines, Morbidity Management and Disability Prevention, Integrated Vector Control, Sound Sanitation, Hygiene practices with safe water supply etc have been utilized.
“We presently are optimizing community engagement for tackling NTDs for sustainability and ownership. In partnership with NGOs particularly Sightsavers, Kaduna State has received long-standing support to tackle the menace of NTDs in the State.
“The World NTD Day is an opportunity to re-energize the momentum towards ending the suffering from these 20 diseases that are caused by a variety of pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, parasites, and toxins.
“Today we will focus on millions of people who have limited or no access to prevention, treatment, and care services.
“I am particularly glad to report that substantial progress has been made over the decade as evidenced by the fact that we have been able to interrupt the transmission of Onchocerciasis in 16 LGAs and eliminate Trachoma in Igabi LGA.”
She disclosed that the State is presently reviewing the Master Plan that will provide a stronger direction that will enable the Ministry to scale up interventions to meet the global target of leaving no one untouched and eliminating NTDs by 2030.
“The recent rollout of the ten-year NTDs roadmap for the period of 2021-2030 by the WHO proposed ambitious targets and innovative approaches towards tackling NTDs provides a clear blueprint and direction towards Global NTDs elimination.
“The plan promotes working across NTDs in an integrated manner with emphasis on three significant approaches; moving from process to impact measuring for accountability, putting in place effective multi-sectoral approach/integration across NTDs, states ownership and political commitment for sustainability.”
The Commissioner who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Aisha Abubakar, called on all partners to join other stakeholders and unite to achieve all goals towards eliminating the Neglect associated with NTDs.
“All these have only been achieved due to the constant and valuable support of our development partners, WHO, Sightsavers, FMOh, and Healthcare workers from the state for their support and contributions towards NTD elimination efforts in Kaduna State.”
“The state conducts annual deworming of school Children and the Mass Drugs Administration for Lymphatic Filariasis and Schistosomiasis across 23 endemic LGAs. Thus far, More than 6,910,095 million treatments have been provided, 216 hydrocele patients treated, 434 health workers trained, and 7,249 Community Directed Distributors (CDDs) trained to distribute medicines within their community in 2023.
“In addition, two Surgeons were trained as state master trainers to ensure quality during Hydrocele surgeries across the state. The state NTD control Programme has successfully transitioned from paper-based reporting to electronic reporting using NTD DHIS 2.0.s. This has helped Programme monitoring and reporting and eased decision-making.
“We have developed a collaborative mechanism/platform to address sanitation and hygiene issues, with special attention given to the policy to end Open Defecation in Nigeria.”
Speaking also, the Program Director for SightSavers on NTDs, Anita Gwom, said that although a lot of work has been done, the road map for eliminating NTDs in 2030 calls for collective efforts among stakeholders.
We are calling on everyone to collaborate, unite and act together, to eliminate NTDs in Kaduna State. For us in Kaduna State, the work has been done for many years now but now we have a road map for 2021 to 2030.
“So, we are hoping and calling on all partners, governments, policymakers, communities, and health workers to come together to ensure that NTDs are eliminated by 2030. This call today is for all government partners to gather resources for this course.
“For us, myself, my colleagues, partners, and other health workers, we should be accountable for our actions to ensure we bring out results as we contribute to the implementation and achieve our target,” she said.
