BY SEPKOLIN WALNE
Tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS and malaria are on the rise in Papua New Guinea, according to the Department of Health.
Acting Secretary Ken Kandap Wai revealed the increased numbers of the infectious diseases during the recent National Health Promotion High-Level Advocacy Workshop in Port Moresby.
“We have a situation in the country in which young people are dying. We have a statistics of 40,000 Tuberculosis (TB) cases per year, between 6,500 to 11,000 cases of HIV/AIDS each year and about a million cases of malaria recorded each year,” he said.
“The existing infectious diseases such as TB, HIV/AIDS, malaria and dengue continue to remain a public health challenge.
“We have to eliminate TB by 2030, we will have to reduce it from 40,000 per year to maybe 1,000 or 500 a year, malaria and HIV/AIDS as well.”
Acting executive manager for Population Health and Healthy Communities Dr. Lutty Amos said: “Way forward for us after this workshop is to prioritise and increase resource allocation.”
Dr Amos said the Health Department needed to work in partnership with churches and the community to promote its objectives.
“We need to strengthen health promotion and making essentials to help achieve the national health plan objectives.
“We are there but not really there, we got work to do and this is the time so let’s plan and budget for health promotion,” she added.
Director of Public Health Authority in Enga Province Dr. Betty Etami Koka said: “We should have this kind of meeting regularly every year to see what we are doing and providing statistics to the people.”