29 Mar 2016

Botswana is committed to ending Tuberculosis (TB) by 2035, Minister of Health, Ms Dorcas Makgato has said.

Speaking at the national TB Day in Palapye on Thursday, Ms Makgato said Botswana was, in 2000, among 147 United Nations member states that made a commitment to achieving a set of eight mutually reinforcing development goals by 2015 and among them combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases such as TB.  

She said Botswana had managed to reverse incidence, prevalence and mortality caused by TB. 

She added that more targeted interventions to key affected populations were now being implemented as outlined in the Post 2015 Global TB control strategy. 

Furthermore, Minister Makgato said Botswana had clearly shown commitment to that target as it was part of the world health assembly that endorsed them. 

As part of a resource mobilisation, she said the ministry had secured US$34 million from the global fund to fight TB, HIV/AIDS and malaria. 

She added that government was also committed to addressing health issues affecting the nation and provided P5.8 billion to the ministry. 

Thus, Ms Makgato challenged the private sector and the business community to invest more in TB control efforts because it was apparent that the socio-economic consequences of the TB burden stretched beyond the health sector and control efforts could not be left to government alone. 

She also encouraged the community to help in fighting TB because it was controllable and curable. 

Minister Makgato appreciated the international community for the technical and financial support to Botswana, particularly to the ministry of health.

 She encouraged them to continue allocating the needed resources until TB ceased to be a public health concern. 

In addition, she said if the TB epidemic was understood, then people would be able to easily overcome it at earlier stages.

Thus, she urged people to encourage others to test for TB when they showed symptoms and also to contact health care departments if they suspected TB infection.

Minister Makgato said globally, it was estimated that nine million people got sick with TB every year around the world.

She expressed concern that TB also remained a major public health problem in Botswana, adding about 10 000 people got sick with TB every year. 

Out of the 10 000 people infected with TB, she said only 7 000 were receiving TB treatment while 3000 were not because some had not sought medical attention. 

She added that they were concerned about those 3 000 TB patients because they were highly dangerous to others since the disease was contagious. 

As a result, she appealed to Batswana to work together towards fighting TB. 

Meanwhile, Member of Parliament for Palapye, Mr Moiseraela Goya, advised Palapye residents to make use of the information they received during the World TB day to save lives.

Mr Goya said Palapye was doing well to combat TB, and thus thanked the area District Health Management Team (DHMT) for their efforts to fight TB. 

He encouraged people to open windows in their homes as well as in schools to reduce the spread of TB. Ends