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Gambia News : Gambia sensitises journalists on tuberculosis prevention
he Gambian National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Control Programme at the
Ministry of Health and Social Welfare on Wednesday organised a
sensitisation programme for journalists on Tuberculosis Case Management
here, PANA reported Thursday.
The programme, held in line with the Global Plan to stop
Tuberculosis, brought together media personnel from across the country
in recognition of the significant role played by media practitioners in
the health sector.
Addressing journalists, the Assistant
Director, Disease Control and Family Health, Madam Ramou Cole-Ceesay,
said the programme, financed by the Global Fund Round Five, was aimed
at empowering journalists with the required knowledge and skills in
supporting policy issues on tuberculosis, its prevention and control in
the Gambia.
Cole-Ceesay said tuberculosis was declared an
emergency in Africa by World Health Organisation Regional Committee for
Africa in August 2005 in Maputo, Mozambique.
This was in
response to an epidemic that has more than quadrupled the annual number
of new TB cases in most African countries since 1990.
She noted that the trend was continuing to rise across the continent, killing more than half a million people every year.
'Globally,
TB is second to HIV/AIDS as a cause of illness and death of adults,
accounting for nearly nine million cases of active disease and two
million deaths every year,' she lamented.
She also highlighted
the increase in the number of TB deaths in Africa which has only 11 per
cent of the worldâ?s population but recorded more that a quarter of
what she called the global burden, with an estimated 2.4 million TB
cases and 540,000 deaths annually.
According to her, although
many national TB programmes are relying extensively on the global fund
to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), few African countries has
included TB in their Poverty Alleviation Strategies.
The
Programme Manager, Mr. Adama Jallow, said the dissemination of correct
information through the electronic and print media was very important
in raising awareness on TB.
'It is evident that Tuberculosis is more than just a disease but also a social and economic problem,' he said.
Jallow
said the National Leprosy Tuberculosis Control Programme (NLTP) had
achieved the national global target of detecting at least 70 per cent
of the estimated TB cases in the Gambia, which has risen from 64 per
cent in 2006 to 78 per cent in 2008.
The cure rate was raised
from 67 per cent in 2003 to 78 per cent in 2008, while the treatment
success rate increased from what he called a base line of 61 per cent
to 84 per cent in 2008, relative to 14 per cent in 2003.
Speaking
on behalf of the journalists, the President of the Association of
Health Journalists (AOHJ), Mr. Pa Modou Faal, charged his colleagues to
make good use of the information gathered by disseminating same to the
public.
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