The national government has been urged to invest in clinics for men to help fight the high tuberculosis burden in Kenya.
According to TB experts, there is evidence men have a higher burden of the disease and there is a need to develop innovative approaches to reduce delays in diagnosis.
Leila Abdullahi, a senior research and policy analyst at African Institute for Development Policy, said TB is the second leading infectious disease globally after Covid-19, with 1.6 million reported deaths in 2021.
She said in addition to the high prevalence, TB prevalent is substantially higher among men than women particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
In 2021, an estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with TB worldwide. Six million men, 3.4 million women and 1.2 million children. TB is present in all countries and age groups.
According to the 2022 World Health Organization global report, out of 133,000 TB cases that were reported in Kenya in 2021, 67 per cent were men.
Abdullahi said most men prefer not to seek healthcare and they only go to hospital when they fall critically ill and the TB has progressed to another level.
"We have a project called 'leaving no one behind, transforming gender pathway to health for TB (Light)', a consortium that aims to reduce TB mortality and mobility among men, women and children," she said.
"It is through this project that we are implementing a package of gender responsive intervention in the health sector as we also try to ensure that we have a number of strategies to engage men in terms of TB active case findings."
Abdullahi said TB is not a one day disease and it has symptoms which take a while but men, prefer not to seek medical assistance.
"When we say we want to engage them in their spaces, then we should look for interventions which includes meeting them where they are," she said.
"For example, we can try and create awareness on TB at boda boda stations where majority are men."
Abdullahi said men see health facilities as women's spaces, therefore, a need to have male clinics.
"We have good services offered by the government through the national TB programme and other stakeholders on board but we are missing men. We need to have men's clinics in hospitals which should be opened beyond 5pm to bring them on board," she said.
Respiratory Society of Kenya (ReSok) post-doctoral research associate Stephen Mulupi said data shows that the TB burden is highest among young men between the age of 15 and 35 years.
He said they are designing a study to explore, investigate and understand why men have a high burden compared to women.
Mulupi said there is a lot of stigma for TB because the disease is associated with other conditions like HIV-Aids.
"Stigma is a big problem cutting across the healthcare system and we need to educate people because if you view and arrest TB before it develops and ravages the lungs, you have a better chance of returning to a normal life rather than if you wait to be bedridden. It destroys the lung tissues," he said.
