TB News Highlights

USAID DEFEAT TB PROJECT

The USAID Defeat TB Activity is a five-year project with a central goal of increasing TB case detection and treatment success to 90% of all cases to end the TB epidemic in Uganda. The project provides technical assistance to the Uganda Ministry of Health and the National TB and Leprosy Division to achieve this goal by strengthening the health systems for TB service delivery. The project is focused on 3 Districts of Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono.

According to the Chief of Party Defeat TB Project Dr Abel Nkolo, while the TB disease is curable, many people are reluctant to seek treatment and where they do, many don’t complete the dosage. He said Uganda is one of the few countries in the world with high TB disease burden and more must be done to combat the prevalence.

“In the last few years, the WHO reported that tuberculosis infection rates rival HIV-AIDS infections as a leading cause of deaths. Several people with TB do not know that they have the disease. Uganda is one of the 30 high TB-HIV burden countries in the world with TB prevalence which is 1.5 times higher than the previously estimated by WHO,” Dr Nkolo said.

He said TB is posing a huge problem because patients do not adhere to the treatment schedule. “About 10 percent of patients with drug sensitive TB die every year and about 15 percent abandon treatment and remain in the community. About 80,000 people in Uganda develop tuberculosis every year but about 4 percent remain undetected. They stay in the community and continue to spread the disease. Every untreated TB patient can spread disease to about 15 others every year. The good news is that TB is curable and treatment is freely available at all TB treatment facilities in the country. To identify and minimize TB infection among all people, there is an urgent need for individual and collective responsibility and the time is now,” Dr Nkolo warned.

He said in September 2018 when they did TB screening outreach in the New Tax Park in Kampala they found 22 patients with TB out of the 366 people who were screened.

“This for TB is a very high number in one location given that it is a highly infectious disease. These findings highlight how close TB is to each one of us and the call for personal and community vigilance,” he said.

Dr Kenneth Mutesasira, the senior technical advisor for the USAID Defeat TB Project, said community sensitization must be done and more people be advised to seek medical attention early.