During the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, WHO has been supporting the government in an initiative to improve contact tracing, active case searching and testing using the existing Tuberculosis (TB) infrastructure in the country.
The outbreak of COVID-19 in February 2020 and the public health response measures put in place to curtail the spread of the pandemic led to fear the virus might impact active TB case finding activities. Instead, WHO and health officials have been using the structure to effectively combine case detection for TB and COVID-19.
In States like Niger, 18 WHO TB supervisors and disease surveillance and notification officers (DSNO) have been designated as super-trainers. During contact tracing, WHO has also been sensitizing surveillance teams on symptoms and detecting TB and COVID-19.
From April to June 2020, 30 rural communities were visited, 3 072 households were screened with 2 235 suspected TB patients identified out of which 277 TB patients were notified through the Niger state TB & Leprosy control program, all being tested for COVID-19.
WHO continues to support Nigeria at all levels to ensure that the Covid-19 response takes advantage of extensive structures and human resources available in the TB control programme to increase detection, diagnosis and management of cases at the community level.
WHO thanks all donors and partners who have contributed to fund the Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan to combat COVID-19. A special appreciation goes to Member States and other contributors who provided flexible funds, making it possible for WHO to deliver a coherent, strategic and broad response.
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Find out more about how WHO and Nigeria are using TB infrastructure to detect COVID-19
Read more about WHO’s response to COVID-19