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This is because of the constant flow of drug supplies and high levels of adherence by patients.
The city, which has not recorded any Multi-Drug Resistance TB (MDR-TB), realised a reduction in the number of terminally-ill patients.
Addressing journalists during a Global Fund to Fight Aids and HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF) media tour at Mbizo 11 Clinic on Thursday, the director of health services, Mrs Phyllis Gochera, said the availability of drugs, a vehicle from the GF and assistance from community care-givers had minimised the burden of TB in the city.
“We join the nation in curbing TB in our city in line with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and WHO guidelines to promote the quality of life among TB patients,” said Mrs Gochera.
“We have a catchment area of more than 36 000 people and we have achieved an 85 percent treatment success rate with records of TB.”
Mrs Gochera said community care givers were playing a big role in attending to bedridden patients and against TB reducing the burden of co-infections of TB and HIV, through education programmes.
“Bedridden patients at home are attended to by community care givers who have shown commitment in the fight against TB. It has become common knowledge that HIV has fuelled TB but due to a good relationship between the clinic and community workers, we have the provision to follow-up on our patients and have managed to reduce the number of deaths caused by TB.
“The use of technology such as cellphones has assisted us to follow up on patients even if they would have moved from one place to the other.
“This has also gone a long way in reducing the defaulter rate among our patients.
“We also have a shortage of health personnel but they are dedicated to their work,” said Ms Gochera.
She, however, appealed to the GF to assist the city with suitable infrastructure to suit the demand for the TB programme as the clinic caters for a large number of people.
The TB coordinator for Kwekwe, Mr George Huruva, said the TB programme was going on well in the city with patients taking drugs from the hospital for the first 60 days.
“When a patient is initiated on TB treatment, we make sure that we give them drugs from the clinic for the first 60 days with adverse effects being addressed with the assistance from the community, the nurses and community care givers,” said Ms Gochera.
Ms Lillian Hundivenga, a community care giver said their programme had assisted a lot of patients to enroll for early treatment and antenatal care and also initiated into the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme.
“Our programme has educated a lot of people about the advantages of early treatment. The programme has also produced several HIV negative children from HIV positive parents through the PMTCT programme,” she said.
Online Reporter