By Lillian Keneqa – EMTV News, Port Moresby
According to Businesses for Health’s (B4H) research and statistics collected, Papua New Guinea is facing a TB crisis. The country currently ranks 10th globally for rates of TB and has 35, 000 new cases every year of which 6,000 of them are in the nation’s capital.
The organisation will be hosting a street festival on the 22nd of March to create more awareness for NCD residents on combating TB. After launching their Women in TB project on Friday, Businesses for Health announced that they will be hosting a street festival to create more awareness on TB.
Ending TB means everyone must focus on facts about the size of the problem. Thousands die unnecessarily of drug susceptible and drug resistant TB. Drug resistant treatment success rate is less than 50%. Last year, there were 2,000 reported cases of drug resistant TB in NCD alone.
Sadly health workers are also at high risk of being infected and sick with TB disease more than any other group.
Businesses for health PNG believes that it’s time to stop people dying unnecessarily of a curable disease.
