‘CTBC an effective patient centred approach’

Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Senior Health Reporter

COMMUNITY TB Care (CTBC) is considered one of the most effective patient centred approaches to TB care and prevention in Zimbabwe and is one of the strategies that will help the country reduce deaths and new cases, an official has said.

The strategy, according to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, allows communities to be involved in the TB response, become empowered and thus provide an effective partnership with TB control programmes.

In a presentation at a workshop in Kwekwe last week, the community TB officer within the Ministry Mr Kwenzi Ndlovu said communities play a key role in raising awareness about TB and ensuring stigma does not reign as many people still associate TB with poverty.

He said community workers were helping the Ministry in screening members of the public and ensuring that families support those with TB so they are able to adhere to medication.

“In Zimbabwe CTBC involves the community to a wider scale than merely observing treatment. Effective CTBC contributes to increased case detection and rates of positive treatment outcome through active TB case finding and community education about TB that improves health care seeking behaviour, community support of TB patients and reduction in TB stigma and discrimination,” said Mr Ndlovu.

He said by bringing TB services closer to the community and empowering the community to support TB prevention and care activities, CTBC is expected to contribute to the goal of ending TB in the country. CTBC seeks to shift the worldwide perception of TB from only a medical disease to a more comprehensive socio-economic and community problem.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Tuberculosis Local Organising Network funding mechanism is supporting a national TB –HIV response in Zimbabwe in eight districts across three provinces which are Matabeleland South, Midlands and Masvingo.

The districts were selected on account of high disease burden, poor TB treatment outcomes and a high concentration of artisanal small-scale miners, an important and often neglected risk group for silicosis and TB.

Zimbabwe has made impressive gains in reducing the number of people who have developed Tuberculosis (TB), between 2015 and 2019. Furthermore, the country’s coverage of HIV testing among TB patients and coverage with Antiretroviral therapy for HIV positive TB patients are both more than 90 percent, a positive since HIV is the major driver of TB in Zimbabwe.

The incidence rate declined from 242 per 100 000 in 2015 to a rate of 199 per 100 000 in 2019, signalling positive strides towards ending TB within the targeted period. – @thamamoe