Business Daily (Nairobi)
Beatrice Gachenge
25 March 2008
Nairobi — The cost of treating tuberculosis is rising rapidly in Kenya, following the spread of a drug resistant strain, health officials say.
Failure to diagnose or treat the disease in time is causing the rapid spread of the strain .
This type of TB, which costs Sh2 million to treat over a period of two years, is said to be exerting heavy financial strain on the Government which offers free treatment for the ailment with the help of donor financing. It costs Sh20,000 to manage an ordinary TB case over six months.
Yesterday, public health officials said lack of skills, especially in rural areas, was to blame for wrong diagnosis that leads many patients to develop resistance to drugs.
Dr N K Mboloi, the chief medical specialist at Kenyatta National Hospital, said most rural dispensaries as well as district hospitals were being run by enrolled nurses who have limited capacity to diagnose TB.
"Without the right skills, most TB cases would pass for malaria," he said. "An anti-malaria drug only suppresses the pain, meaning that the TB bacteria continues to grow." He said. They were speaking during the World TB Day marked yesterday.
Kenya has 289 known cases of patients with drugs resistant TB. The majority of the cases are attributed to failure by patients to complete medication for ordinary strains or failure to follow the prescriptions. Out of this number, only five patients have been treated because of the high cost of the medicine.
Hundreds of drug- resistant TB patients have been sent home without medical care. Treatment of drugs resistant strain is not provided for in the National TB policy that offers patients free medication. Dr Mboloi, however, said help was on the way for these patients through he Global Fund for Malaria and TB.
Stanley Ayabei a clinical officer who was sent to Russia for training on TB diagnosis and management, said failure to successfully treat drug- resistant TB leads to Extreme Drug Resistance TB, XDR TB, which is currently an epidemic in South Africa. XDR TB has no cure. The extremely drug-resistant TB was diagnosed in South Africa after it had killed 52 of 53 patients.
In Kenya, the fight against TB infection, has not been quite successful because of failure to isolate patients.
Dr Mboloi said land had been identified for construction of an isolation facility, but the Government has yet to put up the facility, and set up equipment required to make the facility air tight.
This means that vacuum would be extracted to avoid air recirculation.
A patients is said to have MDR TB after they fail to respond to Rifampicin and Isoniazid, which are used to treat ordinary TB. Last year, the division of TB and Lung Diseases reported 166, 723 cases of TB.
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