- The Ministry of Health’s national TB program manager Dr Kathura Immaculate attributed the statistics to the National TB Program Annual Report, 2023.
- She said there was a need to have targeted interventions to make sure the country could address the pandemic across borders.
Image: GEORGE OWITI
Kenya on average reports over 90,000 Tuberculosis cases annually, the Ministry of Health’s national TB program manager Dr Kathura Immaculate has disclosed.
Immaculate said 97,000 such cases were reported in the country in 2023 alone. She attributed the statistics to the National TB Program Annual Report, 2023.
She said there was a need to have targeted interventions to make sure the country could address the pandemic across borders.
“We have come to launch the Tuberculosis Implementation Framework Agreement project that is a USAID project to support cross-border TB control efforts to make sure we can manage TB across both Kenya and Uganda borders,” Immaculate said.
Immaculate addressed the press on the sidelines of the TIFA Stakeholders Meeting and the launch of the Regional Cross–Border TB Grant in Machakos on Monday.
“When we look at the number of cases per 100,000 population, we have higher incidents at the border points,” she said.
She said the ministry was working with other government agencies including departments of Immigration, political teams and local administration to address issues escalating the pandemic.
Immaculate said they were also working with communities to trace the TB cases and support the patients whether they were majority from one end of the border to the other.
“Making sure that they are initiated into treatment and complete their treatments promptly,” Immaculate said.
IGAD head of mission to Kenya Amb. Dr Fatuma Adan said TB treatment success rates had been indicated by both the Kenyan and Ugandan governments.
Adan who doubles as the senior regional coordinator for Health said their responsibility as the regional intergovernmental Authority was to bring ‘our governments’ together and focus on the populations that cross borders who are infected with TB.
“That’s why you see Kenya–Uganda coming together to address the cross-border TB. We are working with USAID and other institutions particularly the Centre for Health Solutions so that we can put strategies that can combat cross–border TB,” Adan said.
She retaliated against the high rates of TB infections in both Kenya and Uganda.
“Kenya and Uganda have reported over 90,000 TB cases annually. As a combined number, over 90, 000 in Kenya and 91, 000 in Uganda is a big population of TB in two countries. You can imagine of six countries if we put the number of TB that’s notified across the region together,” Adan said.
Adan said IGAD's contribution to the project was to put up a model cross-border TB program that other countries can learn from.
She noted that Kenya and Uganda share several porous borders hence lots of movements of TB patients.
“We want to ensure that such patients are captured at any one point so that the treatment outcomes of TB are improved and that we address particularly TB among the vulnerable populations," Adan said.
"Those who have HIV and TB across borders particularly pastoral communities, children within the border to have a TB-free society."
Adan said the project signifies a crucial step forward in collective efforts to combat tuberculosis in the region, particularly among Cross Border Mobile Populations in Uganda and Kenya.
She said Tuberculosis remains a significant public health challenge and its impact is even more pronounced among mobile populations who often face barriers in accessing healthcare services.
Uganda Ministry of Health assistant commissioner Dr Michael Mwanga said as a country, they noted that there were lots of TB patients who cross borders between Kenya and Uganda and at times lose them as they cross from one country to another.
“So, today we are discussing efforts on how best we can be able to track that patient who is moving from Uganda to Kenya or vice versa so that he/she completes treatment,” Mwanga said.
Mwanga said they had realized that the TB treatment success rate among cross-border populations is usually low.
“Last year, Uganda was able to report over 91,000 TB cases. Most of them were drug-sensitive, we do have drug-resistant TB which is 2 per cent of that,” Mwanga said.
He said the Uganda government was making sure that whoever is diagnosed with TB gets treated and completes treatment.
Image: GEORGE OWITI