BY FAITH KAMTAMBE:
Even on the coldest of nights, she wakes up with her bedding drenched in sweat. She has lost weight at an alarming rate and is experiencing shortness of breath and persistent chest pains coupled with fever.
While family members believe that she had been bewitched, the ailing woman does not accept her situation and decides to visit the hospital. The health facility does its job and concludes that she has tuberculosis (TB).
That is the turn of events for one Emily Manda, one of 16,000 Malawians recently diagnosed with TB.
While being diagnosed with TB may seem less serious than others such as HIV and Aids, those with TB face hardships ranging from strenuous drug consumption to discrimination.
But, on a positive note, patients diagnosed with drug-resistant TB, also known as MDR TB, can heave a sigh of relief at the introduction of shorter treatment of the disease in Malawi.
On the other hand, patients diagnosed later were treated with second lime anti-TB, a treatment administered for a minimum of two months in addition to eight months of daily injections and other oral drugs.
Director of Paradiso TB Patients Trust, Mara Kumbweza Banda, called upon people with TB to avoid sharing their diagnosis with relatives for fear of discrimination.
“When one person in the family has been diagnosed with TB, there comes a need for the whole family to get tested; so, sometimes people found TB positive shy away from telling their relatives about their status. Once a family member has been diagnosed with TB, it is important to screen the whole family because a member or two could also be found positive,” Kumbweza said.
Considering that the country has reached multiple targets set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), including successful TB notification and treatment rates of 85 percent, Malawi is making progress in the fight against the disease.
However, a study by the National Tuberculosis Control Programme (NTP) indicated that 40 to 45 percent of cases remain undiagnosed, putting Malawians and their loved ones in danger.
NTP Manager James Mpunga says the study was a wake-up call for stakeholders.
“We carried out the survey a few years ago and discovered that we were missing close to half of the TB patients,” he says.
Bearing in mind the fact that many TB cases are related to HIV, Mpunga says the organisation has come up with sustainable strategies to curb both diseases if and when they are found in a patient.
“Most of the TB cases are driven by HIV. As far as Malawi is concerned, we saw the first HIV patient in 1985. In that year and years before, we were only notifying around 3,000 to 3,500 TB cases annually. Since 1985 though, because of HIV, we have seen an increase in TB cases.
“By 2008, about 30, 000 TB cases had been registered with the death rate as high as 25 per cent. At that time, one in four patients who had TB were dying, while currently, the death rate is as low as four percent,” Mpunga says.
According to Mpunga, NTP has now mastered the art of treating both diseases with cases lowered by half (at 16,000) within the past 10 years.
“As for the expertise, regardless of CD4 count, all TB/HIV patients should be put on antiretroviral (ARV) within the first two weeks of treatment,” he says.
Currently, Malawi is implementing the Southern Africa TB and Health Systems Support Project backed by the World Bank. The initiative aims at improving the coverage and quality of TB control in targeted geographical areas. Miners, ex-miners and health workers are direct beneficiaries of the project.
To see to it that TB is effectively curbed in the country, the need for communities to work hand in hand is eminent. Increased psychological support systems for people like Emily will help to ensure recovery and overall physical and mental well-being.
“Now I am able to do all my routine work after finishing my medication. I got cured and I am feeling much better. All members of my family were also tested, and luckily, perhaps because of the fact that I started my medication early, none were found positive,’’ Emily says.
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