By Linda Naa Deide Aryeetey
Accra, March 27, GNA – Ghana detected 16,650 TB cases in 2022, an increase of 20 per cent in the 13,278 cases recorded in 2021.
That according to Dr Adusi Poku, Programme Manager for the National TB control Programme, was due to the improvement of case finding activities in all regions.
Speaking at the commemoration of the World TB Day in Accra, he said despite the continuous improvement in case finding, finding the rest of the missing cases was still a major challenge.
He said the 20 per cent increase in cases in 2022 compared to 2021 still left about 65 per cent of the population undiagnosed in the community.
He said a consultant led special initiative to diagnose TB in Children in a major hospital in the Ashanti region detected within six months that 50 children in the community had TB out of whom 10 had drug resistant TB.
He said as much as this strategy is good for case finding, the downside is that it did not target access at the peripheral level facilities.
Dr Poku stressed the need for the country to train clinicians at the peripheral facilities, saying,” The results of this innovative means of finding TB cases also means that there are a lot of adults with TB in our communities who have not been diagnosed and are spreading the TB bacilli because these kids got the disease from adults. ”
The World TB Day is celebrated on March 24, each year to reinforce the need for the TB community and all governments to contribute their resources to the fight against the disease.
The theme for this year’s World TB Day is, “YES! We can End TB” and conveys the urgent need to invest resources to ramp up the fight against TB and achieve the commitments to end TB by 2030.
Each day, globally, over 4,400 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease.
In Ghana, WHO estimates that 45,000 people fell ill with the TB disease and 15,700 people died of TB in 2021 which means every day, 123 people in Ghana fall to TB and 43 people die of TB in Ghana.
The TB programme manager said though Ghana had the best diagnostic TB tests available in more than 1000 health facilities less than 90 per cent of patients sought care.
He said there were potent TB medicines in the country and if patients did not seek care, all efforts would not be impactful.
“High-level stigma against TB in the community is fueling the TB epidemic in the country, we need to reduce stigma in the community to end TB in Ghana while providing other TB services.
Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said Ghana was committed to combating the TB disease.
He said the Ghana Health Service would continue to provide leadership to find, treat and cure all TB cases.
A Deputy Minister of Health Alhaji Mahama Sei Seni, said the Government was collaborating with the Global Fund to set up an MDR treatment centre at Nsawam for the management of complicated TB cases.
He said the Government would continue to waive taxes on imported TB commodities for patients to access diagnosis and treatment promptly.
Activities earmarked for this year’s TB celebration are free TB screening nationwide in densely populated communities, advocacy and sensitization on TB, and a school quiz which will be climaxed later in the year.
The rest of the activities are a webinar for pediatricians by Ghana Pediatric society to increase their suspicion for Childhood TB to enable them to screen more children in all facilities, and a football gala and screening.
GNA