Countries unite for TB combating strategy

IN THE fight against tuberculosis (TB) globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) has created a Flagship Initiative on TB to fast track treatment of the sickness between 2023 and 2027.

The WHO said that in September, the UN General Assembly would convene three High-level Meetings focusing on pandemic preparedness and response and ending TB.

Dr Norbet Ndjeka, the Chief Director for TB Control Management in South Africa, was part of a press briefing with WHO regarding the end process of TB this week.

He said they found tracking and confirming cases a challenge and was using a text message system in combating it.

He explained that patients who had been confirmed to be suffering from TB would receive text messages about their treatment and were working on medication being distributed to homes.

“What we are facing, like many other countries in the world, is finding people with TB, and when we find them, care becomes the challenge and retention care,” he said.

“Covid-19 made it worse that we were testing fewer patients.

“And fewer were successfully treated. Death rate increased and follow ups. What I did was come up with a recovery plan to improve finding the missing reports on TB. Although we acknowledge the fact that screening is important.

“What we picked is that many people had lesions in their lungs when they did not have any TB symptoms.

“Those who are at high risk, those who have HIV, or those who have recently finished TB treatment are retested, regardless of symptoms.

“Brought in something critical, we started sending SMSES to each one who had TB in the public sector, although many did not give their cellphone numbers. To those who received the text message, we linked them to care.

“In that way, we reached more patients than our target the past year. We want to have central distributions of medication to patients’ homes.”

The WHO revealed that the illness was causing the death of 1.5 million per year.

WHO Director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said although TB was curable, it was still its own pandemic.

“WHO is committed to supporting countries to step up their response by expanding access to services to prevent, detect and treat TB as part of their journey towards universal health coverage, and to strengthen their defences against epidemics and pandemics.”

This is the WHO DG’S flagship initiative on the pressing need to increase both domestic and international investments in TB services, research, and innovation, particularly in new vaccine development.

They said the DG’S flagship initiative aims to tackle the key drivers of the TB epidemic - poverty, undernourishment, diabetes, HIV, tobacco and alcohol use, poor living and working conditions, among others.

They explained that they were urging member states to accelerate the rollout of new Who-recommended shorter all-oral treatment regimens for drug-resistant TB.

Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’S Global Tuberculosis Programme, said everyone had to work together in the fight against TB: “2023 is our chance to push forward the agenda towards ending TB.

“We need everyone, individuals, communities, societies, donors and governments--to do their part to end TB. Together, yes, we can end TB.”