Ghana marks TB Day on March 24

THE National Tuberculosis (TB) Control Programme (NTP) has announced that this year’s World TB Day celebration scheduled for March 24, would be held in Tamale, the Northern Regional capital.
The theme for this year’s celebration is: "On the move against tuberculosis: Innovative to accelerate action".
March 24, each year commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the germ that causes tuberculosis.
Each year, Ghana joins the rest of the world to commemorate the World TB Day from March 24, and continues throughout the year. Activities carried out highlights the menace of TB amongst the general public.
At a workshop for selected journalists in Accra in preparation for this year’s TB Day, the NTP indicated that the theme called for a fast move to new innovations in the global fight against the disease. The year has also been dedicated to all diseases of the lung.
Synopsis for the 2010 World TB Day and Year of the Lung presented to journalists by officials of the NTP in Accra, stated that TB control was no longer the preserve of a few health professionals but everybody in the society had a role to play.
Addressing participants in the workshop, the TB Technical Advisor to NTP, Dr Rhehab Chimzizi, said HIV and AIDS and TB were currently referred to as the "deadly duo".
He observed that without a good TB control, the impact of HIV and AIDS in society would be devastating, adding Ghana had a TB control programme which was better than many programmes elsewhere.
He stated that for example, Ghana's policy to provide food to people on TB treatment in addition to free medication would help in controlling the disease in the country.
Dr Chimzizi, who also represents Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and the Tuberculosis Coalition for Technical Assistance (TB\CTA) said TB was the third leading cause of death among women of reproductive age globally, adding that although TB affected more men than women, it killed more women than men due to various factors.
He explained that women who suffered TB were less likely to be diagnosed than men and also less likely to receive treatment.
Dr Chimzizi said the cost of seeking treatment was high for women because of their household duties and child care responsibilities, which involved cost.
He added that in some societies women did not make decision to seek health care, adding that in such cases, husbands or other household members decided for the women as to when and how to seek for treatment.
Dr Chimzizi said when women were infected with the disease or died from it, households suffered from the loss of her earnings and also suffered additional losses due to reduction of activities that women routinely performed in the households.
Touching on what one should know about TB and other lung diseases, as well as the path to cure, an official of the NTP, Ms Mary Ann Ahaibu, said TB was a contagious bacterial infection caused by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis which mostly affected the lungs (pulmonary TB) but could also affect any organ of the body (extra pulmonary TB).
She mentioned pulmonary TB, which was the commonest, and said some of the cardinal symptoms were a cough lasting for two weeks of more, loss of weight, tiredness, night sweats, chest pain and cough with blood.
Ms Ahaibu said TB was preventable and curable and that treatment was free in all public and certified private health institutions throughout the country.
The Communications Officer of the NTP, Ms Cynthia Oware, urged media houses to support the fight against tuberculosis, since the staff of the programme could not do it all alone.
She said the media could do this by educating the public on the dos and don'ts of the disease to help control it.