Tuberculosis (TB) infections are “higher than thought”, with 81,457 Kenyans having been infected last year.
The head of the TB department in the Ministry of Health, Dr Enos Masini, says the infections demand an intensive TB testing and swift treatment to curb the contagious disease that killed 10,000 Kenyans last year.
These are some of the preliminary findings in an ongoing nationwide TB prevalence survey expected to end this month.
“With 90 per cent of the research done, we are noticing that the burden of disease is higher than we thought.
“We need to plan to have more X-ray scans to diagnose the disease as well as put in more resources for TB,” he told the Nation on Wednesday (June 8) during a counties meeting on how to manage resources for TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS under the Global Fund grants.
The high TB burden reflects the ministry's fears that one in every three Kenyans has the TB bacteria but are not ill and do not have symptoms.
This translates to about 14.4 million Kenyans who have the latent TB infection, which is not contagious.
ROLE OF IMMUNITY
But it can turn into active TB when there is reduced immunity, where the body's defence system fails to protect people from the disease.
The most vulnerable include people infected by HIV, those with a poor diet, those who consume excessive alcohol, those with long-term use of medications such as steroids, people with diabetes mellitus and smokers.
Others are the young, the elderly as well as those who work in overcrowded and poor ventilated places.
Another area of concern is Multi-Drug Resistant TB, where the TB bacteria becomes resistant to one of the common TB drugs. It is more lethal, infectious, and expensive to treat.
About 72,000 people in urban and rural areas have been interviewed in the one-year survey in order to gauge the disease's prevalence.
Currently, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Homa Bay have the highest TB infection rates.
In addition to chest X-rays, the study is also collecting sputum (a mixture of saliva and mucus coughed up from the respiratory tract) samples from people above 15 years old that will be tested for the TB bacteria.
Those found infected will be put on treatment at the closest public health facilities.
There are at least 3,100 TB treatment centres and 1,860 TB diagnostic sites in the country.
Source: Daily Nation