• Ministry alarmed over missing patients, 40 per cent of reported TB cases go missing annually
• According to WHO, more than one million Kenyans have successfully been treated in 10 years.
Image: John Kamau
The state has launched the National Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis to eradicate the disease that has reached alarming levels.
Many TB patients go missing, drop their medication, resulting in drug-resistant TB and spread of the highly communicable disease.
Last year alone, 96,400 Kenyans were diagnosed with TB, including 10,000 were children. About 670 were multiple drug-resistant cases, the Ministry of Health said.
Abut 29,000 deaths resulting from TB are reported in Kenya annually.
Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki, who spoke during the observation of World TB day in Thika town on Friday, said the disease is the fifth leading cause of death in the country. She called statistics alarming.
“TB remains a public health concern globally and in the country. We'll require a multi-sectoral approach to get rid of the disease,” Kariuki said.
The CS said the National Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Lung Disease 2019-2023 will ensure a patient-centred approach in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care.
She said fees will be eliminated for diagnosis, TB prevention and chest radiotherapy.
The ministry is alarmed by cases of missing patients. About 40 per cent of reported TB cases in Kenya goes missing annually, despite the diagnosis, medicine and free nutritional support nutrition support by the national government and faith-based facilities.
She said the government has strategies to facilitate finding the missing cases, diagnosing and putting them on treatment to significantly zero-rate the cases by 2023.
President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directed the Health ministry to have diagnosed and treated 597,000 Kenyans — 542,000 adults, 55,000 children and 4,500 persons with multiple drug-resistant TB.
The ministry will provide TB preventive therapy to 900,000 at-risk Kenyans.
“What we have embarked on today is in line with the President’s commitment to deal with TB once and for all,” she said.
Kariuiki said counties should invest in community health workers dealing with TB. “These are the people who interact directly with the community on a daily basis. It will be easy for them to identify cases, find missing cases and follow up on treatment effectively."
World Health Organization representative Rudolf Richard Eggers said TB is among the 10 leading causes of death globally and responsible for two million deaths annually.
He also indicated that according to their estimates, over one million Kenyans have successfully been treated in the last 10 years.
Eggers said 10 million people develop TB globally every year resulting to an estimated 1.6 million deaths.
He said diagnosis of the disease remains a primary challenge facing the TB community since out of the 10 million, only six million are diagnosed.
Eggers said WHO is advocating for mobilisation of political and social commitment to accelerate the fight against TB and get rid of it as a public health burden.
“The UN convened a high level meeting in New York and Kenya was represented in September last year, whereby all heads of states presented committed political declarations to get rid of TB by 2022,” he said.
He urged the state to use the proven measures of fighting TB outlined by WHO.
The Parliamentary TB Caucus chairman and Matungulu MP Stephen Mule said the lawmakers will ensure that all resources set aside to combat the TB epidemic will be tracked to ensure they are expended to the last coin for the benefit of Kenyans.
“It will not be business as usual. We will do and use everything at our disposal to effectively win against TB, including legislating and implementing policies that will facilitate the war. Again we must think outside the box and engage the private sector,” Mule said.