Experts urge screening of Covid patients for Tuberculosis
Medical workers register people during the World Tuberculosis Day in Gulu District recently. PHOTO BY RACHEL MABALA
What you need to know:
- In Uganda, 90,000 people die of TB every year and out of every 100,000 people, 250 are infected and the treatment involves testing of sputum, preventive therapy, and swallowing taking medicine for six month.
The Uganda Stop TB Partnership (USTP), a non-government organisation coordinating all institutions involved in the treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) in the country, has called for screening of all Covid-19 patients for the disease.
Addressing journalists during a sensitisation workshop yesterday, Dr Paul Isiko Kawanguzi, the executive director of USTP, said Covid-19 patients should be screened for TB because both diseases present similar symptoms and share similar modes of transmission. TB is the leading killer of HIV/Aids patients.
“We are now encouraging those with Covid-19 to be screened for TB and those with TB to be screened for Covid-19 and the beauty is that TB drugs and treatment is available,” he said.
Asked what causes TB, Dr Kawanguzi attributed it to a mycobacterium bacilli that attacks any part of the body, especially lungs.
He said the symptoms include coughing that lasts for more than two weeks, weight loss, night sweats, coughing blood stained sputum, chest pains and other aches.
He said it is a curable disease.
Dr Paddy Busulwa, the technical advisor at USTP, said the germ is spread in the air through coughing, talking, sneezing, singing, laughing, and shouting and when poorly handled such as missing many doses, it results in multi drug resistance.
Asked who is most vulnerable, Dr Busulwa said patients with underlying sicknesses such as HIV/Aids, diabetes, malnutrition, alcoholics, cancer patients, and exposed persons such as health workers are at risk.
In Uganda, 90,000 people die of TB every year and out of every 100,000 people, 250 are infected and the treatment involves testing of sputum, preventive therapy, and swallowing taking medicine for six month.
“Those prone to the disease include children less than five years, lack of BCG vaccination, elderly persons, people with weak immunity, HIV infected persons and those who come into contact with infected persons,” he said.
