The National TB Control Programme (NTCP) has said there is a steady reduction of between two and three percent in the number of patients that are diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) each year.
NTCP Programme Director Dr James Mpunga said they identified 16,901 patients with TB in 2016. The figure, he said in response to our questionnaire, was a reduction of about three percent from 2015’s approximate figure of 17,408 patients.
He said such an achievement is coming as the country is emphasising identifying TB patients early and putting them on treatment quickly.
“The idea is that, if we find patients early, it means we will reduce transmission from one person to another. This also leads to good treatment outcomes, that is, patients get successfully treated and few of them die. For example, the treatment success rate for Malawi currently is 86 percent against a WHO target of 85 percent,” he said.
Mpunga also said through the programme, they are making sure that barriers to accessing care, diagnosis and treatment are reduced.
“We are now strengthening community TB care whereby patients are being screened or submit sputum samples closer to homes. About four percent of our patients are currently being contributed by the community initiatives. The proportion of TB patients co-infected with HIV has been on the decline since 2003 when it was 77 percent to 53 percent in 2016. The number of patients getting ART among those co-infected with both TB and HIV is also as high as 94 percent,” he said.
The proportion of patients with multidrug-resistant TB in Malawi is around five percent, which is low compared to other Sadc countries, Mpunga said.
Executive Director of the Centre of Human Rights Education Advice and Assistance Victor Mhango said the fight against tuberculosis should be emphasised in the prisons which he described as a breeding ground for the disease.
“There are a lot of TB patients in prisons and if we leave the situation like that, we are not doing well to the nation, we need to decongest the prisons and do whatever possible to reduce TB among inmates,” said Mhango
In response, Mpunga said going forward, the NTCP will continue to strengthen TB care in children, miners, people living with HIV, migrants and prisoners as these are high risk persons.
“The country would also like to strengthen its collaboration with civil society organisations, private practitioners, traditional healers, private pharmacies, private labs and other players in order to improve TB case finding and advocacy,” he said.
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