A community rally for local stakeholders to deal with the menace of tuberculosis (TB) has been organised at Weija in the Ga South Municipality.
On the theme: “Zero TB Death”, the programme was a collaboration by the National TB Control Programme, the Ghana Health Service and the Integrated Development in Focus (DIF), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
The Executive Director of DIF, Mrs Josephine Agbo-Nettey, said the government should be able to find new ways and better tools to fight TB.
She stressed the need to reach more people with TB care and promote the uptake of innovative technologies.
“There is an incredible energy in the TB community. Let us have our moment of silence, reflect and then move on to work for making TB a disease of the past,” she said.
Mrs Agbo-Nettey noted that although many people thought TB was an ancient disease , it rather remained a huge global problem, and that there were nine million new TB cases and 1.7 million deaths each year worldwide.
The NGO works at Weija, Oblogo, Mallam, Kokrobite, Bortiano and Obom, which are TB-prone areas in the Ga South Municipality.
“What saddens my heart so much is the fact that tuberculosis is both curable and preventable. The cost of diagnosis and the medicines to treat TB are free. Yet, women, men, children and even babies are still becoming ill and dying of TB every day,” she said.
Mrs Agbo-Nettey said trained volunteers found it difficult to do referrals because identified clients relocated immediately, while others travelled to other facilities outside the municipality.
“This behaviour has very serious implications for the municipality,” she said.
She said amazing progress had been made by governments, health systems, the World Health Organisation, the stop TB partnership, private sector practitioners and companies.
The Ga South Municipal Director of Health Services, Madam Jacqueline Sfarijlani, called on persons affected by the disease to undergo regular treatment.
She called on community members to pick up people who were coughing incessantly and refer them to the hospital for screening and treatment.
She dismissed the notion held by some people that the disease was caused by witches.
There were free medical check- up, education on TB, including drama, introduction of trainee volunteers and the sharing of experience by a cured TB patient.
