12 Feb 2015

The Greater Francistown District Health Management Team (GFDHMT) has implored stakeholders, business community and surrounding areas to put more effort in the global fight against Tuberculosis (TB) to achieve zero infections.

Briefing media houses and stakeholders at a breakfast show meeting held at Adansoina Hotel on Wednesday February 11, TB coordinator, Mr Doctor Makabe said World TB Day was about commemorating the lives and stories of people affected by the disease.

Mr Makabe said health education campaigns inform on the importance of early diagnosis and regular treatment for the patients such as the screening programme to detect the disease early.

He said various other events like seminars and exhibition on tuberculosis are held with the aim to impart knowledge on all aspects of TB.

Mr Makabe further said TB was curable, but their current efforts to find, treat and cure everyone who gets ill were insufficient.

He noted that of the nine million people who got infected with TB every year globally, a third of them did not get proper services they deserved. 

Mr Makabe said World TB Day calls for a global effort to find, treat and cure the three million and accelerate progress towards zero TB deaths, infections, suffering and stigma.

He said to reach the three million and move towards eliminating TB as a public health problem they would need to aggressively scale up programmes, especially for the most vulnerable groups and in hotspots, while investing in research and development for the new tools that they urgently need.

‘’If we are successful we can ensure that we meet the Millennium Development Goals, accelerate the fight against TB and start to talk realistically about eliminating TB as a public health problem in the next two decades,’’ he noted.

In her welcoming remarks, regional TB and HIV coordinator, Ms Grace Banda said Botswana is among the countries that are affected and infected by TB.

Ms Banda noted that every year about 600 people infected by TB are registered in Francistown whereas the country registers 6 000.

The upcoming TB commemoration day will take place at Chedu Choga grounds on March 24, 2015.

Ms Banda said the theme of this year is ‘Reach the three million- A TB test, treatment and cure for all.” Francistown Mayor, Ms Silvia Muzila applauded all stakeholders for their participation and explained that TB was curable if detected early.

She urged the business community to play an important role on sensitising their employees on TB infections.
ENDS