By Stella Kabruk
Kaduna, May 16, 2026 (NAN) Isah Dansallah, the North West Zonal Coordinator, Tuberculosis Network Nigeria has raised concern over imminent shortfall in anti-TB drugs, diagnostics, and treatment commodities in the country.
Dansallah raised the concern in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Kaduna.
He warned that the commodities could be completely exhausted by June if urgent emergency measures are not implemented immediately by relevant government authorities.
According to him, the country’s tuberculosis response faces total collapse by June 2026 without immediate Federal/State intervention.
He tasked the government on emergency bridge financing and deployment of contingency funding mechanisms or utilisation of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) to clear outstanding counterpart funding obligations to unlock withheld donor-supported commodities.
“The country is standing at the edge of a major public health catastrophe as the country’s Tuberculosis (TB) response programme faces imminent collapse due to critical funding delays and severe shortages of essential treatment commodities.”
Dansallah also urged the government on emergency procurement measures to activate expedited procurement procedures to secure anti-TB medicines and diagnostics before the projected June 2026 stock-out deadline.
He added that this alarming development threatens to reverse decades of progress made in the fight against Tuberculosis, one of the deadliest infectious diseases affecting Nigerians.
According to him, there’s a looming public health emergency If the current situation persists as the country may experience massive disruption of treatment for thousands of patients currently undergoing TB therapy.
He also recommended the establishment of a National TB crisis desk by convening an emergency multi-stakeholder coordination meeting involving the Federal Ministry of Health, National TB and Leprosy Control Programme (NTBLCP), implementing partners, donor agencies, and civil society organizations to coordinate rapid response measures and commodity redistribution.
According to him, health experts warn that MDR-TB is significantly more expensive and difficult to treat, posing long-term economic and public health consequences for the country.
“As Stakeholders in health, we are calling on the Minister of Health, the Director of the Budget Office of the Federation, Accountant-General of the Federation, and Chairmen of the Senate and House Committees on Health to immediately declare the situation a national health emergency and activate urgent interventions within the next 14 days.
“We call for responsible leadership budgetary allocations which must translate into lifesaving medicines at health facilities across the country.
“Delays in execution must not be allowed to trigger avoidable deaths or fuel a nationwide drug-resistant TB epidemic.”
According to him, Nigeria cannot afford to treat this matter with routine bureaucracy. The time for decisive action is now.The lives of thousands of Nigerians depend on it.(NAN)
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