adminPaidamoyo Chipunza Senior Reporter
Government has commenced refurbishment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) centres throughout the country, Deputy Director for Aids and TB Unit in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Charles Sandy has said.
Dr Sandy said the MDR-TB centres, whose construction was supposed to commence in 2014 started a few months ago and work is expected to be complete in the next two months.
“Tenders have already been awarded and refurbishments have since commenced. They have told us that they would need at least three months to complete the work and from the time tenders were awarded, we are already past one month,” he said.
Dr Sandy said about US$1 million was set aside for the process and funding was availed to the country by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2014.
“The process has been slow, but we are optimistic that since work has already started, they will meet the three months deadline that they have given us,” he said.
Dr Sandy said should they fail to complete all the work before the end of the year, Government risked returning the budgeted $1 million to the Global Fund.
He said renovations of the centres was expected to improve the quality of MDR-TB treatment in Zimbabwe particularly for patients requiring admission.
Currently, these patients are managed at district hospitals dotted across the country.
“The plan is to have an MDR-TB specialised centre in each province, with competent staff to deal with this strain.
“At the moment patients are currently managed at district hospitals as and when they come, but the hospital’s are not specialised,” he said.
MDR-TB usually develops among patients who have previously failed TB treatment, but current trends shows that the condition can be transmitted in its own right as evidenced by it being diagnosed in patients never on TB treatment.
The number of people diagnosed with MDR-TB continue to increase in the country from a low of 40 in 2010 to 412 in 2014.
According to health experts, treatment and management of MDR-TB is quiet expensive costing an average of US$4 000 to treat one person.
Online Reporter