BY DALCY LULUA
SPEAKING at the Koki-Wanigela TB Health Program- Systematic Screening Intervention, the National TB Project Manager said every year more people are dying from TB even though we are doing our best to treat them.
Dr Margaret Kal, the National TB Project Manager of the country said currently, TB is a big issue in the country, we have 30 to 40 thousand people who are sick with TB every year. We are doing our best to treat them, the government buys best medicine that is available anywhere in the world to treat TB.
“Even we are treating TB, TB cases are increasing every year and every year more than 5000 people are dying from TB; those are the ones coming to us and are reported deaths, they are people dying from TB that are not reported as well,” she added.
However, the TB Project Manager said people a lot of people are dying and and a lot of people are becoming sick of TB but once you get treatment as early as possible, the treatment is effective and powerful that it will cure TB.
“When you look at it a lot of people are dying from TB every year and are becoming sick with TB. The good thing about TB is once you start on treatment, treatment is very powerful and effective that you can get cured.
“The thing about Tb is we have to find it quickly and treat it early so you will not be able to spread it, unlike other disease Tb is a disease that spreads by air,” said Dr Kal.
Dr Kal said the aim of the SSI Project Program was to find out who have TB and to put them on treatment as soon as possible so it won’t spread.
“You come here, we screen you, send you to the van there and they will examine you on the spot. You don’t need to go the hospital, Doctors will see your x ray on the spot and say you have Tb or not, we do your test within two hours and are able to give you your results and if we know that you have TB straight along the same day we will start you on,” she added.
Deputy Director for Public Health in the National Capital District Provincial Health Authority Dr Rosemary Morre highlighted challenges faced in getting treatment for TB.
“Our biggest challenge now is diagnosing patients, putting them on treatment and the completion of treatment.
“For drugs alone we need K23 million per year but the Government allocated only K10 million for us this year. We were only able to buy half of the drugs we need and beg our partners to help us.
So far we have World Bank supporting TB Program in the country so we are using some of the money from that to buy drugs,” said Dr Morre.
She further called on Government to give the full K23 million for drugs inorder for them to continue the sustainability of the TB Program.
“We would like to do similar projects throughout NCD and also throughout hotspot districts; in fact most of the urban districts are the hotspot areas, they have the highest burden of TB in each provinces.
we’d like to do similar projects in the rest of the country especially in the urban districts, but it all depends on the funding we get,” she added.
Meanwhile, in a press statement released by Prime Minister James Marape on the reports of World Bank funded operational projects, the World Bank has allocated US$ 15 million for Emergency TB Project in the country.
