Nairobi 24th March 2023
Nairobi City County, Health, Wellness and Nutrition County Executive Committee Member Dr. Anastasia Nyalita in the company of Health Advisor to the Governor Dr. Samora Otieno today marked the World TB Day 2023 held in Nairobi at Bus station. This year global theme is: “Yes! We can end TB!”. In Nairobi, we have localized our slogan to be “form ni kumaliza TB Nairobi”.
Globally 10.6 million people fall ill of TB with 1.6million death. Kenya notified 90,841 in the year 2022 with Nairobi contributing 15% of the case reported in the country.
Dr. Nyalita in her speech said that: Nairobi is one of the high TB burden counties. In 2022, Nairobi County notified 12,163 TB cases, among them 1,250 (10%) were children below age of 15 years. Same year 83 people were diagnosed with drug resistant TB and currently on treatment. TB screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up is offered free of charge in all government and faith based facilities but still 40% of people with TB are missed yearly. This therefore calls for concerted efforts across all sectors in a multi-sectoral approach to mitigate this gap.
In December 2022 a pilot project was implemented in Nairobi. The TB patients’ digital platform known as Digital Adherence Technology(DAT). Targeting 5000 people, teenagers aged 15years and adults of all ages. The TB, DAT monitors the progress of the patient’s by sending a prompt SMS message at the time they indicate they take the medicine. The system is an android based shows patient adherence pattern so far more than 1600 patients have been registered.
“I wish to call upon all health care providers not to relent in combating this ancient disease by actively looking for missing TB patients among all our ‘clients’ who come to seek medical services in our health facilities and enhance creation awareness at the community level on TB.” Said Dr. Nyalita.
Today we are offering free TB screening here on site. The process starts registering then chest screening, if need be the patient is referred for chest X-ray. The samples are collected, a diagnosis is given and treatment start immediately. other services offered HIV counseling and testing and COVID-19 vaccination.
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