Maintaining treatment vital in protecting TB patients – Health Minister

Reiterating that Guyana has adequate medications to treat persons living with tuberculosis (TB), Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony is urging continued use of medications, especially in light of the pandemic.

On Thursday, Guyana joined the observance of World Tuberculosis Day under the theme “Invest to end TB. Save Lives.” The Health Minister underscored that the Ministry has been able to keep its services open during the pandemic, in a bid to sustain treatment regimens of patients.
“We have kept our services open, all our clinics and so forth. We have kept our doors open so that patients can come to our clinics, access services and what is important in this case is for them to maintain their treatment regimen. People would have to be on these medications for so long and a lot of people don’t like taking medications,” Dr Anthony shared on Thursday during the COVID briefing.
To prevent defaulting and multiple drug-resistant TB, the Ministry has Directly Observed Therapy (DOTS) workers, who would visit homes and ensure that persons are taking their medications.
“When we had big spikes, it was very challenging and one of the new methods that we did was called Video DOTs. The patient would have a cellphone and show us that they’re actually drinking their meds. Now that the cases of COVID have dropped significantly, we’re able to go back to routine monitoring,” Dr Anthony said.
He added, “We have been doing some work to identify cases of multiple drug resistance to TB. That work is going. We had made some projections as to how many cases we estimate in Guyana…we haven’t seen the cases that we have projected. That’s a good thing.”
In his message for World TB Day, the Health Minister had observed that the world was running out of time to act on commitments to end TB. In Guyana, ending the disease is a priority, with the country having moved from one TB site in 2000 to 20 sites across the country. There are five established clinics in the prisons.
“The Ministry has also rolled out regional testing for TB using the Gene X-pert technology. This reflects the Ministry’s strong commitment in carrying out a sustainable fight against tuberculosis countrywide. Over the past years, TB cases in Guyana has declined. Despite being preventable and curable, TB remains a challenge, causing 1.5 million deaths globally every year. This problem is further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted medical services and stagnated or reversed earlier gains,” Dr Anthony underscored.
One of the critical challenges in TB control in Guyana is the HIV epidemic within the population. Although strong collaboration between the TB and HIV programmes has led to a decline in TB/HIV co-infection rates, HIV remains one of the biggest concerns and underlying causes of TB morbidity and mortality. Other challenges include the high prevalence of chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high substance misuse among TB patients, and access to services by isolated hinterland communities.
“Over the years, we have seen the epidemiological shift in the TB epidemic which is evident mainly among the young working population in both urban and rural areas of the country. This places a huge burden on TB patients and their families due to catastrophic costs. Hence, it is an essential aspect of the End TB Strategy which the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security are currently addressing to improve the social protection of our less-fortunate TB patients,” the Health Minister stated.
“According to the Stop TB Partnership, the global gains addressing TB have been reversed and the entire TB community is advocating for urgent action to get back on track to fulfil the 2022 UN targets on TB. I reaffirm that our Ministry stands committed to implementing the UN Political Declaration on TB, as we work towards universal access to quality prevention, diagnosis, and treatment and care of tuberculosis.”