More needs to be done to address tuberculosis diagnosis and increase treatment coverage in Papua New Guinea.
This was revealed by the medical officer Dr Robin Yasi to the clinicians during the three day Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) Tuberculosis (TB) training in Port Moresby recently.
The National Department of Health (NDoH) and the National Tuberculosis Project (NTP) and its partners, has done so much work over the years to reduce the statistics.
“A lot of activities started then, and with the use of the GeneXpert for screening, we started seeing an increasing number of cases except in 2020 where there was a slight decrease. We are still picking up and reporting MDR-TB cases around the country,” Dr Yasi said.
According to Dr Yasi, among new TB cases, 4 % are MDR-TB cases, while 23% of previously treated TB cases also present as MDR-TB cases. Estimates of MDR/RR-TB incidence is 24/100,000 people, while the estimated new MDR-TB cases for 2021 was 2,400, of which only 535 (about 22%) were detected. Estimated MDR/RR-TB treatment coverage in 2021 is 22%, with the global average at 36%. About 15% of these cases are lost to follow-up.
In 2022, there were 666 RR-TB cases, with 542 (81%) enrolled for treatment. Of these, 47% were from NCD, 15% from Western Province, 8% from Morobe, 7% from East Sepik Province, East New Britain, and Madang 4% each, and Milne Bay and West New Britain 3% each.
“We are not doing well with the coverage. We are doing half the work that has to be done, and we need to improve on that,” Dr Yasi said.
“Between 2014-2016, there was a lot of emphasis and priority on TB. A lot of resources were committed to TB and there were new diagnostic instruments or the development of new tools to diagnose TB, training of staff and the development and introduction of new treatment guidelines and regiments.
“There was better TB treatment, resulting in the decline and unchanged rates. We hope to maintain that in the future” he said.
Adding to that, Dr Rose Moore, Deputy Director for Public Health, NCDPHA said some key support in the fight against TB will soon shift, and government health workers must step back in to ensure tuberculosis services continue at the health facilities.
“This training is important to refresh and up skill our team in NCD to start working in that space to address the challenge of multi-drug resistant TB in the NCD,” Dr Moore said.
The training was facilitated by WHO’s Dr Challa Ruda and attended by physicians, paediatricians, medical officers, health extension officers, TB-HIV officers and pharmacists from the Port Moresby General Hospital, Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL), Gerehu Hospital, and other health facilities in NCD.
