TB a serious concern: Agarobe

Papua

By TREVOR WAHUNE
Tuberculosis (TB) a serious concern in Central, Governor Robert Agarobe says.
Agarobe told The National last week that provincial health officers raised the TB concern as a matter of  paramount importance for government to address.
“The threat of TB to the people of Central is serious. The threat that lies in this situation is where we have those who have TB living within communities and are not known,” Agorobe said.
He said although there were drugs for TB but having those drugs available was another issue.
He said he was concerned that his people were located close to Western where there was a recent outbreak of the disease and the threat to Central was real.
“Western recently had cases of TB outbreaks, and with Central located not far to it, we don’t know whether if it has covered most of our rural areas already,” Agarobe said.
“It all comes back to our aid posts, because our aid posts are our first points of call in our local areas.
“Without aid posts we cannot source the right statistics because it is where all diagnosis begins.
“An example of such cases is Goilala. Goilala has no TB cases.
“It was not because none of them have TB, but it is because there were no means of collecting statistics.”