West New Britain Provincial Health Authority

All-out war on TB!

The theme is “STOP TB IN WNB AND STOP TB IN PNG”.                

PNG and West New Britain Province are sitting on the Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) time bomb.

West New Britain Provincial Health Authority and NDOH are meeting regularly to address the immediate concerns and develop the long term 5 year strategic action plan.

Secretary of NDOH, Pascoe Kase, and a team of TB specialists are now on board to address the immediate measures and to make sure that there is control of this potential explosion.

Alarming rise in WNB TB cases

Chairman of the West New Britain Provincial Health Authority, Dr. Mathias Sapuri, says as of the first quarter of 2017, there were 8,885 registered cases of TB in WNB.

This, Dr Sapuri says, highlights the obvious fact that there is ongoing TB transmission in the community of WNBP. Dr Sapuri also pointed out Gasmata and Kandrian as the two non-functional areas in terms of measuring the impact and rise in TB cases.

All these basic measurement units are not consistent with testing and reporting due to a number of reasons: