Rumphi District is among the districts that are doing very well in the fight against Tuberculosis. The district achieved 91% treatment success rate in the year 2021.
Speaking to Malawi24, Rumphi TB officer Umar Mwamadi said the fight against TB in Rumphi is going very well and the treatment rate has gone high because they are working very hard to make sure they find cases as early as possible and put them on treatment.
“Last year 2021 we recorded 74 cases and out of these cases, 63 were cured from TB and the cases were lost to follow up. So, I can say from that number we did a very good job and it represents 91% treatment rate which is very good. The treatment success has gone high because we are putting much effort in case detection whereby we need to find cases as early as possible and start treatment as soon as possible, so this has contributed a lot to high treatment rate and also sputum collection points have also helped us a lot in case detection,” said Mwamadi.
Mwamadi also noted that there has been improvement compared to the year 2020 where people were not coming for screening because of Covid-19, but in the year 2021 and 2022 there were some changes, with more people coming to the hospital for screening.
According to Mwamadi, Rumphi district in the first quarter of 2021 has recorded 43 cases, one is dead and another one is lost to follow-up but the other 41 cases are on treatment and responding well to treatment.
In his remarks, Rumphi District Environmental Officer OJohn Mpoya said as a district they have some success when it comes to the fight against TB and this has really helped them to achieve the 91% treatment rate.
“On success right now, use of volunteers and local leaders and even some other community structures we are able to bring TB services close to people talking of sputum collection points within the community so these volunteers are able to go door to door identifying TB cases and those presumptive cases are identified early before the condition worsens.
“Even sputum collection points are done in the community unlike in the past where we had to travel all the way from the community to the district but right now services are close to people and we find cases more easily than in the past and I can say these interventions have really contributed a lot to the fight against TB in Rumphi,” said Mpoya.
Mpoya also hinted that despite the high treatment rate, as a district, they are facing some challenges and these challenges need to be addressed as soon as soon possible so that they do not affect the fight against TB.
“TB here in Rumphi has some challenges and successes. For challenges, like I said we are working with communities and we have community structures those like volunteers. They are not paid but they do quite a lot and sometimes when they decide to leave the program, we miss cases, and again we have some areas that are hard to reach and we don’t have our front line workers like HSAs so in such areas we miss cases. These are some of the challenges that we are facing,” said Mpoya.
