Ghana will join the rest of the world in commemorating World Tuberculosis Day on Wednesday, March 24th, amidst COVID-19, with a press conference and community TB screening in Tulalu, Ashiaman.
Due to COVID-19, the normal year-round events around the country will be missing this year. Following the day’s TB screening, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), will address the media at the Service’s premises.
The day’s overall theme is “The Clock is Ticking!” The day will be commemorated in Ghana with a local theme: “The Clock is Ticking to Reach the End TB Goal by 2035.”
According to Dr Yaw Adusi-Poku, Programme Manager of the Ghana Health Service’s (GHS) National Tuberculosis Programme, the theme expressed the message that “the planet is running out of time to move on the promises reached by global leaders to end TB.”
This, he stated, was crucial in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had jeopardized End TB progress, as well as the need to provide equal access to prevention and treatment in line with WHO’s goal of Universal Health Coverage.
World TB Day was founded in 1882 to celebrate Dr. Robert Koch’s discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus that causes tuberculosis (TB).
It is also a day to inform the public about the effects of tuberculosis, share successes in tuberculosis prevention and management, and increase consciousness of the problems that stand in the way of eliminating this deadly disease.
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Dr. Adusi-Poku stated that the events planned would increase public concern about the catastrophic health, social, and economic effects of tuberculosis, as well as the need to intensify efforts to stop the global pandemic.
“TB is now the most lethal contagious disease on the planet. Every day, about 3014 people die from tuberculosis,” he added.
He clarified that as part of Ghana’s initiative to eliminate tuberculosis, the NTP had introduced measures throughout the country to enhance case identification.
“Intensified TB case finding, sputum sample transport, and universal access to GeneXpert test, increased TB case diagnosis in individuals living with HIV (PLHIV), and placing all HIV patients on Preventive Therapy to keep them from developing TB (TPT) are among these therapies.
Others include improving TB case identification in other high-risk categories (such as diabetics and children), improving touch tracing and inquiries in households with index pulmonary TB incidents, and improving MDR TB management in Ghana.
Currently, 44,000 new cases of tuberculosis are registered per year in Ghana, with 15,000 deaths due to the disease per year and 870 drug-resistant TB cases each year, with an expected effect on the country by the end of 2020.
In Ghana, five people are contaminated with tuberculosis (TB) per hour, with two people dying as a result.
In 2020, the NTP would have detected, diagnosed, and treated 12,333 and 591 infants, respectively.
Coughing, singing, and sneezing spread TB as a droplet infection from a sick TB user.
If an uninfected individual inhales these droplets, they can become contaminated. It mainly affects the lungs, but it may also influence the pleural cavity, liver, scrotum, kidney, stomach, and womb. Extrapulmonary tuberculosis is the name for this form of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis can also be present in livestock such as beef, and is classified as bovine tuberculosis.
Cough, weight loss (poor weight gain in children), headache, tiredness, night sweats, chest pain, and cough with blood soaked sputum are all symptoms of tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis is an illness that can be prevented and treated. In both municipal and licensed private health services, diagnosis and care are given free of charge.
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
