Health workers on TB awareness drive

HEALTH workers are concerned that despite the availability of free drugs to treat tuberculosis at all public health facilities, the rate of deaths from the disease is rising.
Medical practitioners, community health workers and non-governmental organisations including World Vision and Population Service International think that the best way to curb the increase is to inform people.
World Vision provincial advocacy communication social mobilisation coordinator Stella Rumbam took the step forward when she conducted a two-day TB training programme for 16 staff members of the Steamships Group of Companies.
Steamships, operator of shipping companies, hotels, manufacturing and trucking services, brought in officers from Mt Hagen, Goroka and Madang for training.
They were trained to provide in-house training to their fellow workers as integral part of a broader TB workplace policy, Rumbam said.
Rumbam explained that “TB is a serious chronic and contagious disease that causes many deaths even though it is curable”.
She said that with “proper pharmaceutically certified drugs”, the disease could be treated.
Rumbam added that the patients also needed care and love from families and colleagues.
She said the two common types of TB were pulmonary and non-pulmonary, which affect the economically active age group of 15 to 54.
Rumbam said the disease was airborne and could affect people from all walks of life.