Govt earmarks sh4b for TB drugs

By Vision Reporter

The Government earmarked sh4b to procure Tuberculosis drugs in the next six months.

Health minister Dr. Christine Ondoa Thursday told a news conference in Kampla that the first batch of the drugs will be in the country by September.

 The drugs will distributed be to both private and government health centers, the minister said.

Tuberculosis remains a major public health concern with Uganda recording 330 per hundred thousand population new cases every year. This represents 102,000 cases.

Statistics show that out of 100,000 persons tested, 136 people test positive of the disease.

It also indicates that by the year 2011, Uganda had recorded 49,009 tuberculosis cases, out of which 25,612 were infectious and 55% of the cases had both TB and HIV/AIDS.

The health ministry recently rolled out the distribution of 180 fluorescent microscopes to be used in laboratories at health facilities countrywide.

The microscopes were procured through a Global Fund grant worth sh1 billion and will help in the early detection of TB cases in the country.

According to the medics, Uganda is ranked 16th out of the 22 countries with one of the highest TB burden in the world.

A survey to assess the functionality of TB laboratories in 638 health facilities revealed that 25 health facilities had no microscopes and 343 had one microscope.

Health officials say simple tuberculosis costs US$30; and without proper treatment, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis costs US$3,000 to treat.