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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke
Senior Health Reporter
The participation of communities to identify people with tuberculosis is being increased by Government through the involvement TB survivors to improve the national response to the disease.
This comes as the country continues to be highly burdened with TB, with about 33 000 cases being notified annually. However, more than 12 000 TB cases are being missed as a result of poor health seeking behaviours, delays in seeking care, limited access to health facilities as well as under-reporting of TB cases.
Speaking on the sidelines of a recent two-day training workshop to equip TB survivors to work with health workers to identify TB cases in the communities, Ministry of Health and Child Care Harare provincial TB and leprosy coordinator Mr Clibert Mwinga said this was important as it would increase perception of the disease.
“We are training survivors of TB to be able to promote better outcomes for TB. They will assist us with raising awareness about TB and encouraging people to get screened and receive treatment. We are teaching these community cadres how we track TB as a Ministry and the indicators that we use when doing this”.
Under the programme there are trackable indicators, which include community participation.
He said the community was currently contributing only 4 percent to the notification and there was need to increase this to 12 percent if the country was to reduce the number of missed cases.
The training is being supported by the Stop TB Partnership Zimbabwe through the Zimbabwe National Network of TB survivors.
Jointed Hands Welfare Organisation advocacy communications officer Ms Melody Mukundwi said community participation would help the country reach targets to end TB.
“We are working closely with TB survivors to ensure that they have a seat at the table and are part of the decision making whenever we discuss TB issues to ensure we achieve the goal of ending TB by 2030. This training of community cadres is aimed at educating them on the role that they can play in screening, contact tracing and treatment support,” she said.
According to the World Health Organisation, the implementation of community-based TB services is an integral part of the health systems and provides an opportunity to increase health service coverage and find the missing people with TB.
This ensures that care is delivered in a safe, effective, efficient, equitable, and people centred way.
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