Lagos, Dec. 9, 202- Nigeria bears the highest burdens of tuberculosis and paediatric HIV, which accounts for 50 per cent of neglected tropical diseases in Africa, the World Health Organisation, has said.
The WHO said although the prevalence of malaria has declined from 42 per cent to 23 per cent of which Nigeria contributes 27 per cent of global cases and 24 per cent of global deaths.
The WHO Country Representative, Dr. Walter Mulombo, said these known on Thursday at the 6th Annual Conference of the Association of Nigerian Health Journalists with the theme, ‘Health security, Universal Health Coverage, and National Health Insurance Act: How can Nigeria get it right – The role of the media in perspective.’
Dr. Mulombo, who was represented by the Field Presence Cluster Lead, WHO, Ahmed Khedr, said non-communicable diseases accounted for 29 per cent of all deaths in Nigeria with premature mortality from the four main NCDs-hypertension, diabetes, cancers, and malnutrition, accounting for 22 per cent of all deaths. (GBN)
