Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Government has disclosed that 51,000 patients that were found with a type of tuberculosis that responds to standard t-b drugs were put on treatment in 2021 which includes women, men, and children.
Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary in Charge of Administration George Magwende says this is against an estimated 59, 000 TB cases the country expects to detect every year.
Speaking during the run to end TB campaign ahead of world TB day on Thursday 24 march 2022, under theme – invest to end TB. Save lives, at east park mall in Lusaka, dr. Magwende says the country recorded about 27 percent increase in TB cases in 2021 compared to the 40,726 patients the ministry detected and treated in 2020.
Dr. Magwende has further explained that in 2021 and in 2020 the country missed at least 8,000 and 19,000 incident cases of drug-sensitive TB respectively.
He says the ministry’s resolve for 2022 is to find all the incident TB cases which is 59,000 towards eliminating TB in Zambia by 2030.
And Dr. Magwende says the country loses not less than 4, 000 lives attributed to Tuberculosis.
The permanent secretary says it is for this reason that in this run for TB campaign the ministry aims to run 59,000 kilometers as a collective between today and the 24th of march.
Dr. Magwende has assured Zambians that TB is a curable disease, and that any patient with TB stands a huge chance of survival if the TB disease is detected and treated early and if the patient adheres to the prescribed TB treatment.
And speaking earlier, Ministry of health National Tuberculosis Manager Patrick Lungu says the country has made progress in fighting TB but stressed that more needs to be done.