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Kenya to launch campaign to strengthen fight against TB

Xinhua, March 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

Kenya's health authorities said on Wednesday they plan to launch a major campaign to beef up the efforts to fight against tuberculosis (TB) in the country.

Principal Secretary of Health, Dr. Nicholas Muraguri said the campaign"Find TB! Treat TB!", will be launched on Thursday as the country joins the rest of the world in marking the World Tuberculosis Day.

"A network of trained and skilled health workers has consistently enabled the rapid uptake of new policies and technologies as well as the provision of services across 4,500 health facilities and 1,800 TB testing sites," Muraguri said.

Data from the Ministry of Health indicates that Kenya recorded 109,000 new cases of TB in 2014.

In the past 10 years,some 1.2 million Kenyans have been found to have TB and provided with treatment services, saving the lives of over 500,000 Kenyans.

In Kenya, TB is among the deadliest public health threat with untreated TB patients remaining a source of infection for other members of the community.

The East African nation has already achieved significant milestones in the fight against TB as it is the first African country to achieve WHO global targets of detecting 70 percent and treating 85 percent of TB cases.

In the new campaign, the Ministry of Health will be pushing for more county health facilities to adopt the new testing equipment, the GeneXpert, which tests for TB in under two hours.

Mailu said there are now over 120 drug resistant surveillance sites equipped with GeneXpert.

"The government has done this to ensure free and universal access to TB testing and treatment. Last year alone, just under 80,000 TB tests were performed up from 20,000 in 2014," he said.

Following the WHO recommendation on implementation of collaborative TB/HIV activities, Kenya has achieved universal access for HIV testing among TB patients and universal access to ART for those with HIV and TB.

Through these interventions, the TB/HIV co-infection rate in Kenya has reduced from 70 percent in 2010 to about 30 percent in 2015. Enditem