TB detection centres for vulnerable c’nities 2014

Tuberculosis (TB) detection centres are to be established in vulnerable communities next year in an effort to step up the fight against the disease, the Minister of Health, Ms Sherry Ayittey, has announced.
She said the TB detection centres would ensure early detection and management of the disease considered to be a national security threat and a major cause of death, particularly among people living with HIV if unattended to.

“Early detection of TB case is, therefore, important in the fight against TB mortality and morbidity,” she said yesterday, at the opening of a sub-regional workshop organised by the West African College of Nursing.

Participants from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia attended the workshop, which was on the theme: “Current trends in tuberculosis management in the sub-region: Implications for nursing practice”.

The aim was to share best practice experiences and for closer collaboration in a sub-regional fight against TB.

TB statistics

In 2007, one-third of the world’s population was infected with TB, with an estimated 13.7 million people having active TB, while 9.3 million new cases and 1.8 million deaths were recorded.

World Health Organisation (WHO) 2008 statistics showed an increase in tuberculosis in Africa as compared to America.

Coming home, the WHO Global TB Control 2009 annual report indicated that new TB detection cases in Ghana, according to the 2007 data, were estimated at 26 per cent, while sputum smear positive cases were estimated at 38 per cent.

Those statistics meant 74 per cent of all TB cases in Ghana were not detected and, therefore, not treated.

“To achieve WHO defined MDG target zone of 70 per cent TB case detection by 2015, Ghana needs to adopt robust systems that will increase the case detection rate,” the health minister said, adding, “If people infected with TB are detected early, the trend of TB in Ghana can be reversed.”

Investment in health & nutrition

Ms Ayittey said investment in health and nutrition had been lacking in many African countries.

“This has resulted in stubbornly high levels of maternal mortality and malnutrition across the continent and high fertility in many countries,” she said.

Ms Ayittey said the health ministry had developed a national nutrition policy to be forwarded to Cabinet soon, for approval and onward submission to Parliament for passage.

In a keynote address, a senior lecturer at the School of Nursing of the University of Ghana, Dr Lydia Aziato, called for strong collaboration among countries in the sub-region in the fight against tuberculosis.

The Executive Secretary of the West African College of Nursing, Mr Solomon Adeleye, said despite the frightening statistics of WHO that one-third of the world’s population was infected with tuberculosis, many West African governments were not taking the disease as a serious health problem.

By Kofi Yeboah &Emmanuel Tawiah Forson/Daily Graphic/Ghana