Arusha — East African Community Secretariat has warned that the Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is on the rise and its attendant cost of care threatens the economy of the region and may reverse the gains that the East African Community had made so far.
EAC deputy secretary general in charge of productive and social sector Jesca Eriyo said that the East African countries ranked among the countries in the world with high TB burden due to lack of high quality laboratories as well as effective diagnostic tools.
"These could hinder timely diagnosis of TB and MDR-TB leading to continuous transmission of the disease thus undermining the region's efforts to offer quality services to patients," she said while addressing participants who attended a three-day regional tuberculosis control best practices meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya last week.
The objective of the meeting was for the health professionals to take stock on the progress the regional bloc has made in the improvement of quality of healthcare services offered to patients with tuberculosis (TB).
They also shared best practices that could be scaled up and ultimately lead to a more vibrant and healthy East Africa.
Ms. Eriyo hailed the Regional Centre for Quality of Health Care and USAID/East Africa for identifying and supporting the implementation of quality healthcare in management of patients infected with TB in the Community.
She noted that developing countries tend to focus on quantity rather than quality of care that patients get resulting into high numbers of patients attended to at health facilities.
"As health care professionals you may not appreciate how important the quality of care is until you personally get first hand experience of being a patient," she noted.
She disclosed that the EAC in collaboration with the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community and the partner states had embarked on implementing a World Bank funded East African Public Health Laboratory Networking (EAPHLN) project.
The project is aimed at establishing a network of efficient, high quality, accessible public health laboratories for the diagnosis and surveillance of TB and other communicable diseases.
She added that the project was supporting 31 laboratories in East Africa and had adopted the World Health Organisation Stepwise Laboratory (Quality) Improvement Process that leads towards accreditation to strengthen laboratory systems.
She added that under the laboratory project network, a total of 35 GeneXpert machines were to be procured.
GeneXpert machine is the latest technology that is recommended by WHO for use in patients suspected of having MDR-TB or HIV-associated TB and also is able to produce laboratory results in a few hours rather than the existing diagnostics that takes months to produce results.
She also informed participants that following the directives by the EAC sectoral council of ministers on regional cooperation in health, the East African Community had began the processes and negotiations that may lead to the establishment of the East African Community Medical and Public Health Laboratories Accreditation Board and the East African Community Medical and Public Health Laboratories External Quality Assessment Scheme.
"These are regional initiatives aimed at strengthening laboratories in the Community," she said.
allAfrica.com