Tuberculosis: Medical expert tasks nursing mothers to ensure their children take BCG vaccine
Director of Disease Control, Edo State Ministry of Health, Dr. Osamwonyi Irowa has tasked nursing mothers to join the fight against the spread of tuberculosis infection by submitting their children for Baccilus Calment Guerin Vaccine, (BCG).
Moved by the recent rate of the disease in the society, Dr. Irowa, gave the charge at an event where he was conferred with a corporate membership award by the Nigerian Institute of Character Education (NICE), for his selfless and committed service to humanity.
When speaking against the backdrop of a recent report that Nigeria loses one person to tuberculosis every hour, Irowa said it was true, due to lack of proper diagnosis on the part of the patients. He added that lack of proper management of the disease could lead to death.
“Tuberculosis is a chronic lung air-borne killer disease that has been in our society for decades, and when you pick out the prevalent and the statistics, divide by numbers of days and months in the year you will be able to work out how many persons died in a year either per day or second.
“The disease is no longer as deadly as it was because the drugs are now more effective due to government’s intervention. The duration of treatment is no longer one year and drugs are provided in very simple form for people to easily use rather than making it for them to swallow.
“I am appealing to nursing mothers to visit health centers rather than going to chemists or pharmacists’ shops for direct drugs purchase,” he stated.
