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Namibia: Grim Statistics on TB Day
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The Namibian (Windhoek)
28 March 2008
Posted to the web 28 March 2008
Christof Maletsky
Windhoek
Namibia joins the rest of the world today in marking Tuberculosis Day, but there will not be much to celebrate.
A month after Health Minister Dr Richard Kamwi declared tuberculosis (TB) a national health emergency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that the pace of progress in controlling the epidemic had slowed slightly.
Between 2001 and 2005, the average rate at which new TB cases were detected was increasing by six per cent a year but between 2005 and 2006 that rate was cut in half, to three per cent.
"The reason for this slowing of progress is that some national programmes that were making rapid strides during the last five years have been unable to continue at the same pace in 2006," the WHO said in a new report released on Wednesday.
The report said most African countries had made no increase in the detection of TB cases through national programmes.
"Other studies have also shown that many patients are treated by private care providers, and by non-governmental, faith-based and community organisations, thus escaping detection by the public programmes," it said.
In Windhoek, Health Permanent Secretary Kahijoro Kahuure said 15 205 TB cases were reported last year - that amounts to 720 cases among every 100 000 people.
Namibia is one of the world's two worst affected countries.
The other country is Swaziland.
Kahuure said despite Namibia having one of the highest incidences in the world, the country was "making good progress with regard to national tuberculosis control".
He said 76 per cent of the cases started on treatment in 2006 were treated successfully and were now completely free of the disease, while eight per cent had defaulted and seven per cent haddied.
"However, Namibia's target for successful completion of TB treatment is 85 per cent," Kahuure said.
Earlier the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria warned Namibia about this "substantially below average" success rate.
It is a policy of the Ministry to offer all TB patients an HIV test and that those testing positive be referred for anti-retroviral treatment.
According to the Namibia TB annual report, in 2006 some 67 per cent of TB patients tested positive for HIV.
TB affects mainly the poorer sections of society.
Many are HIV positive.
The latest world TB report also documents a shortage in funding.
Despite an increase in resources, especially from the Global Fund and some middle-income countries, TB budgets are projected to remain flat in 2008 in almost all of the countries most heavily burdened by the disease.
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Ninety countries in which 91 per cent of the world's TB cases occur provided complete financial data for the report, indicating that to meet the 2008 targets of the Global Plan to Stop TB, the funding shortfall for these 90 countries was about US$1 billion.
Kahuure said Friday's commemoration would be about empowering people to deal with the disease.
The main event will be held at Mariental but other regions are also expected to have local activities.
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