Medical Officer for National Tuberculosis Programme, Dr. Robin Yasi said there is a lot more that needs to be done to address tuberculosis diagnosis and to increase treatment coverage in Papua New Guinea.
Dr Yasi said this recently during a three-day training on Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) Tuberculosis (TB) in Port Moresby delivered to 28 clinicians from health facilities under the National Capital District Provincial Health Authority (NCDPHA).
MDR-TB is a form of tuberculosis infection caused by bacteria that are resistant to two of the most powerful medications, Refampicin and Isoniazed, used to treat TB. At the same time, Refampicin-Resistant TB (RR-TB) is resistant to Refampicin, which is also treated as MDR-TB.
Dr Yasi said the number of RR-TB has increased since 2018, and it must be addressed.
“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,” said Dr Yasi.
Dr Rose Moore, NCDPHA Deputy Director for Public Health, told clinicians that some key support in the fight against TB will soon shift, and government health workers must take a step back to ensure tuberculosis services continue at the health facilities.
“This training is important to refresh and upskill our team in NCD to start working in that space to address the challenge of multi-drug resistant TB in the NCD,” said Dr Moore.
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.
The Emergency TB Project aims to improve the quality, expand the coverage and utilization of health services to control the spread of tuberculosis in target areas of PNG, including the National Capital District by strengthening programmatic management of tuberculosis and is implemented by the National Department of Health with funding support from the World Bank.