Benue State is ranked the highest in tuberculosis cases in the North Central zone and sixth across the country.

The state Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr. Yanmar Ortese, disclosed this at a press conference in Makurdi, the state capital, on Monday to mark this year’s World Health Day.

He said, “Our fight against tuberculosis is ongoing with the state ranking sixth in the country and first in the North Central zone for TB cases.”

The commissioner called on the people of the state to join hands with the state government in its fight to reverse the high trend of tuberculosis.

Ortese stated that the state had enrolled over 50,000 of its most vulnerable population into the state’s health insurance scheme under the basic healthcare provision fund programme across the 276 political wards of the state.

He added that over 5,500 Internally Displaced Persons have also been enrolled in the health insurance scheme, thereby optimising healthcare delivery to the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

Giving an update on Lassa fever cases in the state, Ortese disclosed that 820 cases were received, 63 confirmed with 16 deaths while two persons are on admission and in stable condition.

He lamented that the state, in recent times, had experienced multiple disease outbreaks, including measles and Buruli Ulcer, among other diseases.

“We are responding to the largest fever outbreak in the history of our state,” he said, adding that their capacities are stretched, particularly as the state lacks a functional public health molecular laboratory.

Earlier, the Regional Director of the World Health Organisation for Africa said that consideration of vulnerable groups must be assessed.

The regional director, who was represented by the State Coordinator, Dr. Mohammed Abdulkarim, posited that their needs ought to be purposefully integrated into health programmes at all levels to accelerate progress towards Universal Health Care.