"Anambra, KNCV Adopt 2 Prong Screening Strategies for All Patients to End TB in State": Expert Says
- The KNCV is working collaboratively with the Anambra state government to bring an end to the cases of Tuberculosis in the state
- This was revealed by a medical expert working in the state Oke Chijioke, a KNCV senior program manager and team lead for the Anambra cluster
- According to Chikjioke, all patients who visit medical facilities in Anambra state are screened for Tuberculosis
A medical expert, Oke Chijioke, has said that the Anambra state government with support from the KNCV Nigeria ensures that all patients across facilities in the state are tested for Tuberculosis to reduce the spread of the disease among residents.
Chijioke, a KNCV senior program manager and team lead for the Anambra cluster in an interview with Legit.ng said that his organisation has been working round the clock to end TB in the state.
Source: UGC
Caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the disease Tuberculosis presents symptoms like feelings of sickness or weakness, weight loss, fever, and night sweats. The bacteria usually attack the lungs and/or any part of the body including the kidney, spine, and brain.
Although not all person infected by the bacteria becomes sick, Tuberculosis when not treated immediately can be life-threatening.
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Speaking on approaches adopted by Anambra with support from KNCV, Chijioke said the organisation adopts two approaches to support the state government in the fight against TB.
Chijioke's words:
"The main thing that drives us is what we call FAFT - Finding Actively, Seperatly Safely and Treating Effectively and we do all these by supporting the state in two prongs. We have what we call facility-based and community-based interventions.
"So in the faculty-based intervention, we adopt a strategy of 100 per cent assessment for all clinic attendees. What this means is providing TB screening for anyone who comes into the facility for care.
"What we do is that we have four symptom checks which we use for anybody that comes in. We screen them using symptoms by asking questions like, so you have cough for more than two weeks? Do you have a fever for more than two weeks? Do you have night sweats for more than two weeks?"
Control methods for ending TB in Anambra
Speaking further, Chijioke confirmed that the team while screening the patients, identify those with presumptive TB cases - people who are assumed to have TB - and ensures that they go for diagnosis.
He added that for those who are diagnosed with TB, the team further ascertain whether they are infected by drug-susceptible TB or drug-resistant TB.
Training of health workers to end TB
In addition to these approaches, health workers in the state are also trained to ensure that no case of tuberculosis is missed in Anambra.
Chijioke added:
"We noticed that healthcare workers are overburdened with their work so what we do is that we engage some ad-hoc staff who we train based on these symptoms I mentioned and we position them to work with the healthcare workers at the energy point of the clinics.
"We call it the service delivery points and we place them there to work alongside the healthcare workers and they are the ones to ask these questions and the healthcare workers will supervise them.
"With that, we can ensure that anyone that comes into the hospital will have access to TB screening."
Also working collaboratively with the Anambra state teams and all the relevant stakeholders on TB in the state, Chijioke said the state government has facilities in places where the screening going on.
He also explained that in some of these facilities, the health workers wait for the patients to present themselves.
However, with the ad-hoc staff mostly in high-volume sites in the state like the teaching hospital, the KNCV trains staff on the ground in smaller facilities and ensure that effectively screen all patients.
Chijioke said that due to the transfer of staff from one facility within the state to the other, the KNCV works towards building the capacity of healthcare workers working across facilities in the state to ensure quality service delivery.
'Tuberculosis infection among children on increase', expert raises strong alarm, advises FG
The Nigerian Government had earlier been asked to pay more attention to the spread of Tuberculosis among children in the country.
The call was made by the executive director of the Stop TB Partnership Geneva, Lucica Ditiu on Wednesday, August 24.
According to Ditiu, there is a need to close the funding gap in tuberculosis prevention, treatment and management processes.
FG begins massive screening in FCT, 36 states to find 300,000 missing tuberculosis cases among residents
The Federal Government had embarked on a drive to wipe Tuberculosis disease away from the country.
The effort by the Nigerian government follows the need to detect about 300,000 Tuberculosis cases which are not accounted for.
The drive to wipe the disease from the country started with a massive screening exercise in the Gishiri community of the Federal Capital Territory.
Source: Legit.ng
