Kenya: Public Hospitals Offer Free Tuberculosis Management
By Geroge Okore
NAIROBI----Kenya now offers free screening and management of all tuberculosis strains in public hospital as it seeks to achieving and surpassing World Health Organization (WHO) targets.
The country remains among 22 high TB burden countries, which collectively shoulder 80 per cent of the global burden of this age-old disease. Launching this year’s World Tuberculosis Day at Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi on Wednesday, Public Health and Sanitation Minister Beth Mugo called for stronger collaboration among all players to erase tuberculosis, which she said remains a serious public health challenge.
“Like any other disease of public health importance, we must build strong and innovative new solutions that can increase case detection of TB. In addition, we need to support adherence to TB treatment including ensuring that all patients get the necessary information they need to enable health care workers monitor and evaluate those on treatment, ”she said .
The World TB Day will be commemorated on March 24 worldwide and Mugo wants leaders to put more commitment in the fight against tuberculosis. Although Kenya has made good progress in the fight against TB, the country reported more than 106, 083 TB cases in 2011 with more than 4,000 deaths which could have been prevented. In 2011, Kenya was ranked position 15 down from 13th two years ago and position 5 in Africa.
Since Kenya launched its National TB Programme in 1980, considerable progress has been made towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The country has committed efforts and resources, which has seen decline of new TB cases reported and many lives saved while the spread of the disease is being curbed. Two years ago, the country also launched intensive TB screening in her prisons and other correctional facilities
Dr Joseph K. Sitienei - Head of Leprosy, TB and Lung Diseases department in Kenya said Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWS) are always on the lookout for those who cough frequently so that they are quickly referred to the nearest health facility for diagnosis and treatment. He urged those who start TB treatment to complete their medication as prescribed by the doctors.
“We have decentralised our healthcare to move closer to our clients . This has enable us to provide high quality drugs, which have passed all the mandatory tests. However, a world free of TB will not be achieved without much needed political goodwill, adequate funding and commitment of all Kenyans”, he argues.
Dr Sitienei said Kenya has embarked on new measures to reduce communal TB transmission by providing more rapid and user friendly tests that can provide results within a day. Through partnership with World Bank, Kenya is also decentralizing TB culture services from the only laboratory in Nairobi to five additional laboratories scattered in the country.
The country also does surveillance for drug resistant types of TB especially MDR TB,. which is very expensive and a challenge to the country’s healthcare. In Kenya, over 11 per cent of all TB cases notified in the country are children. Consequently, the government places serious emphasis on diagnosis of TB in children and providing care to infected children.
The area previously received little attention, but the ministry recently developed guidelines on management of Childhood TB. Kenya has also introduced computers in all health facilities to increase timeliness of reporting and improving patient care. It is also training all her health care workers to be computer literate.
“ I am confident that this technology will solve the problem of delays in submission of reports, minimse duplication errors and solve challenges that have existed for a very long time”, says Mugo.