Board Chair of the National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Prof. Dorothy Yeboah-Manu has expressed significant worry over the level of stigmatization against people affected by the deadly tuberculosis.
According to her, the discrimination against TB patients has discouraged most of them from seeking treatment at hospitals, hence allowing the bacteria in their systems evolve.
During an interview with Happy98.9 FM’s Samuel Eshun on the “Happy Morning Show,” Professor Yeboah-Manu disclosed there are some prescribed medication for curing TB as she shared that lab tests and medications come at no cost.
“Fortunately there is a medication for TB called the multi-therapy. The lap test for TB patients is also free and same goes for the medicine. The only short course medicine is meant for six months and you have to take it daily. You need to occasionally visit the hospital so the doctors review the effects of the medicine, whether it is serving its intended purpose or not. The only worrying thing is the stigma around TB. So when people are infected they tend to hide it. The bacteria in them also tends to mutate since they failed to treat it. We need to pay attention to that and encourage TB patients to undergo the necessary medication,” she stated.
Prof. Dorothy Manu believes Africa’s fight against TB is however not sufficient as she revealed TB is the leading cause of death across the African continent.
“What saddens me is that other countries across Europe and in most part of the world have fought well to curb tuberculosis, but our fight as Africans against the disease is below average. It is obvious the rate at which Covid-19 kills is high, but looking at countries like Ghana and other African countries, so many people have been killed by TB than Covid-19,” she said.
“That is why we keep saying we need to invest more to fight the disease. We need to put similar effort in the fight against TB as we did to Covid-19. So far, Ghana’s treatment success in TB is 86% but we need to do better,” Prof. Dorothy Manu added as she admonished the country’s leaders to invest adequately into the fight against TB.
The World Tuberculosis Day is commemorate on the 24th of March every year and the theme for the 2022 commemoration is “Invest To End TB. Save Lives”. This conveys the need for world leaders to understand that without adequate financial resources, we cannot win the fight against TB and reverse the severe impact of COVID-19. The disruptions caused by the pandemic have led to decreased the number of people diagnosed and treated for TB, and dangerously affected the rights of people with TB.
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