TB still big public health problem
By, Charles Mpaka, The Daily Times, April 14, 2008
National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTP) said last Friday that TB was still a big public health problem in Malawi inspite of successes the country has registered in the fight against the disease.
NTP said this in Blantyre at a briefing intended to enable the media come to grips with technical issues about TB.
NTP said from 2003, the number of TB cases from the districts has not gone up or down.
“This does not mean that TB has become a less problem,” said NTP Director Felix Salaniponi.
“It is still a big public health problem. It is killing people. Because of its chronic nature and the length of time it takes to cure it, time is being spent on caring for patients.”
Salaniponi reported that 75 people develop the disease everyday while 15 others die from TB every day.
“The major challenge is that we are not finding many cases that should have been coming to us. In that case, the TB situation will not go down because these cases we have not detected could be spreading the disease to others. This contributes to TB being an emergency case in Malawi,” Salaniponi said.
The World Health Organisation ranks Malawi as achieving a low detection rate of less than 50 percent, especially among the poor who are underserved and face problems such as geographical distance and high opportunity costs to access TB diagnostic and treatment.
Malawi recorded a 98 percent cure rate between 1984 and 1987 but that was eroded by HIV/Aids, which constitutes another big challenge in the fight. According to NTP, 70 out of every 100 TB patients are HIV positive.
The WHO recently ranked Malawi as second best in Africa after Rwanda HIV testing rates in TB settings.
In terms of cure rate, Malawi recorded a 74 percent rate in 2005. This rose to 76 percent in 2006. This, however, was 19 percent lower than the cure rate WHO requires.
The NTP director said Malawi’s efforts on TB were also being threatened by the presence of the multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).
He said although there are very low MDR-TB cases in Malawi currently, its scale of devastation could not be ignored.
If the current MDR-TB situation is mismanaged, it could lead to development of the almost incurable extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB).
“It takes too long to treat, about 24 months and the drugs are toxic. A patient will have to get an injection every day for six months. And it is like bush fire that could go wild to become XDR-TB,” Salaniponi said.
According to NTP, it takes up to K3 million to treat an MDR-TB patient, a condition that often results from default of ordinary TB treatment.
In response to the emergency status of TB in the country, government last year developed a two-year plan of action for TB.
The plan, motivated by the low detection rates, seeks to bring universal access to TB diagnosis.
Through the plan, NTP will, among other things, expand community response and establish TB corners in all health facilities where people can easily access or demand for TB related services.
The plan will intensify TB detection and screening of high-risk groups like prisoners.
It is reported that between 8 and 10 percent of TB cases in Malawi come out of prisons and that prisoners are 10 to 15 times more susceptible to contract the disease than the outside society.
Source: http://www.dailytimes.bppmw.com/article.asp?ArticleID=9078
National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTP) said last Friday that TB was still a big public health problem in Malawi inspite of successes the country has registered in the fight against the disease.
NTP said this in Blantyre at a briefing intended to enable the media come to grips with technical issues about TB.
NTP said from 2003, the number of TB cases from the districts has not gone up or down.
“This does not mean that TB has become a less problem,” said NTP Director Felix Salaniponi.
“It is still a big public health problem. It is killing people. Because of its chronic nature and the length of time it takes to cure it, time is being spent on caring for patients.”
Salaniponi reported that 75 people develop the disease everyday while 15 others die from TB every day.
“The major challenge is that we are not finding many cases that should have been coming to us. In that case, the TB situation will not go down because these cases we have not detected could be spreading the disease to others. This contributes to TB being an emergency case in Malawi,” Salaniponi said.
The World Health Organisation ranks Malawi as achieving a low detection rate of less than 50 percent, especially among the poor who are underserved and face problems such as geographical distance and high opportunity costs to access TB diagnostic and treatment.
Malawi recorded a 98 percent cure rate between 1984 and 1987 but that was eroded by HIV/Aids, which constitutes another big challenge in the fight. According to NTP, 70 out of every 100 TB patients are HIV positive.
The WHO recently ranked Malawi as second best in Africa after Rwanda HIV testing rates in TB settings.
In terms of cure rate, Malawi recorded a 74 percent rate in 2005. This rose to 76 percent in 2006. This, however, was 19 percent lower than the cure rate WHO requires.
The NTP director said Malawi’s efforts on TB were also being threatened by the presence of the multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).
He said although there are very low MDR-TB cases in Malawi currently, its scale of devastation could not be ignored.
If the current MDR-TB situation is mismanaged, it could lead to development of the almost incurable extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB).
“It takes too long to treat, about 24 months and the drugs are toxic. A patient will have to get an injection every day for six months. And it is like bush fire that could go wild to become XDR-TB,” Salaniponi said.
According to NTP, it takes up to K3 million to treat an MDR-TB patient, a condition that often results from default of ordinary TB treatment.
In response to the emergency status of TB in the country, government last year developed a two-year plan of action for TB.
The plan, motivated by the low detection rates, seeks to bring universal access to TB diagnosis.
Through the plan, NTP will, among other things, expand community response and establish TB corners in all health facilities where people can easily access or demand for TB related services.
The plan will intensify TB detection and screening of high-risk groups like prisoners.
It is reported that between 8 and 10 percent of TB cases in Malawi come out of prisons and that prisoners are 10 to 15 times more susceptible to contract the disease than the outside society.
Source: http://www.dailytimes.bppmw.com/article.asp?ArticleID=9078
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 2:47 pm
2 Comments:
Definitely still one of the health problems we are facing as of today. It is now curable tough, I've stumble upon this site and also find good facts.
Tuberculosis is spread from person to person through tiny droplets of infected sputum that travel through the air. If an infected person coughs, sneezes, shouts, or spits, bacteria can enter the air and come into contact with uninfected people who breath the bacteria into their lungs. You can read more here…
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