The six month health blitz, conducted with local health workers, Seventh Day Adventist Health and World Vision International, detected 51 new tuberculosis cases and two new HIV cases.
Papua New Guinea has one of the world’s highest TB rates. According to the World Health Organization, 437 people in 100,000 have the disease. Of those, 14 per cent are also HIV positive.
TB patients must complete a six-month course of medication, making access to drugs and proper supervision vital to tackling the disease.
