TB needs K23mil: Doc

The National Main Stories

By ZINA KOIM
THE Health Department’s National Tuberculosis Programme needs more than K23 million to buy drugs, says manager Dr Margate Kal.
She said the programme needed this amount because it was treating between 30,000 and 40,000 patients annually in the country.
“For us to treat all of them, just for drugs alone, we need more than K23 million per year.”
Dr Kal said the Government’s budget had only allocated K10 million.
“We are only able to buy half of the drugs we need, then we have to beg partners to buy (the rest) for us.”
She said funding from aid agencies was covering the programme’s shortfall.
“So we are using some of the money from them to buy drugs.
“Under the World Bank’s loan, we are buying some drugs as well.
“But what we need is for the Government to give us the full K23 million to ensure and continue the sustainability of TB programmes such as the systematic screening intervention (SSI).
“We have a strategy to control TB in the country.
“The plan costs around K6 million for five years.
“Right now, about 10 per cent of that is funded,” she said.
Dr Kal added that the rest was unfunded however the partners such as the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Global Funds and other partners had tried to support.
She explained that while the support was given it was put into the areas the TB programme required.
“To do this type of things we don’t have support,” she said.
The programme manager commended the SSI for TB and said it was a good initiative that could identify the number of cases in communities and country.
“That can only be funded by the Government,” she said.
Dr Kal said the SSI project would end in March because of no funding to keep it going.
“It is a project to a timeline so it’s ending in March,” she said.
“Government needs to sustain this.
“We would like to do similar projects like this in the National Capital District and other hot spot districts in other provinces and that is what we are trying to advocate to the government to fund us.”