In Nigeria, over 22 million people are infected with hepatitis B and over 4 million with hepatitis C.
In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Mike Omotosho, a public health expert and President of Hepatitis Zero Nigeria Commission talks about the many challenges facing treatment and elimination of the virus.
PT: In 2016, the WHO set targets to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, and provided a Global Health Sector Strategy to run from 2016–2021. Nigeria joined the league of other nations to sign this. Do you think Nigeria is on course to meet this target?No, we are not but we are about to start the process. I say this because in 2016, donor partners came together and there was a strategic document developed for Nigeria.
PT: What are the challenges towards eliminating viral hepatitis in Nigeria and or meeting the 2021 target?: There are several barriers as to why Nigeria cannot eliminate hepatitis by 2021. Number one is lack of awareness about the disease and to improve awareness, a lot of funding will be needed. For instance, we have less than a thousand Gastroenterologist in Nigeria so If you divide that to 200 million people that will tell you how many Nigerians we have to one gastroenterologist.
PT: Do you think Nigeria has the political will and a robust budget line to support the elimination of this silent killer disease that infects more than 20 million people in our country?: For me, it’s a yes yes for both of them. We have what it takes and we are very resilient people.
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