Kenya: Ministry of health to conduct first tuberculosis prevalence survey
Kenya’s ministry of health is set to conduct the first tuberculosis (TB) prevalence survey since its independence in 1963.
Dr. Enos Masini, Head of National Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Lung
Diseases Program, has said that concerted efforts have made
towards eradicating the disease, but still some 20,000 cases of
the diseases are unrecorded.
"The country has
achieved significant success in the fight against tuberculosis,
but the battle is not over just yet as many cases of the highly
contagious TB disease still go undetected and untreated across
the country, hindering the nation’s efforts to attain zero
TB infections and deaths," Masini said.
He revealed
that the survey that is to cost a total of 3 million U.S.
dollars will start in mid July countrywide and will take 10
months to be completed.
Masini observed that the
survey will target 100,000 people in urban and rural areas.
"We
are interested in knowing the types of TB that exists to help
identify what interventions to apply in future management of the
disease given that a number of people are undetected and
untreated."
Kenya is the first African country to
achieve WHO global targets of detecting 70 per cent and treating
85 per cent of the TB cases successfully.
TB is a
public problem and it is the fourth largest killer in the Kenya,
with close to 1 million people having succumbed to it and over
90 per cent having been treated successfully.
According
to Masini, 90,000 people were diagnosed with TB last year, and
the major factor responsible for the large TB disease burden in
Kenya is the concurrent HIV epidemic.
Other factors
that have contributed to this large TB disease burden include
poverty and social deprivation that has led to a mushrooming of
peri-urban slums, congestion in prisons and limited access to
general health care services.
Source:
Coastweek
