By Staff Writer

Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) is pursuing innovative community and facility-based systematic screening against Tuberculosis (TB) in a bid to reduce the spread of the drug resistant TB strain.

Officiating at a virtual event to mark the World TB Day, this Wednesday, Vice President and MoHCC Minister, Constantino Chiwenga said that there had been notable progress in reducing the number of people suffering from TB, despite the country still suffering from the scourge of a drug resistant strain of TB.

“In 2020, a total of 226 drug resistant TB cases were notified and Government decentralised drug resistant TB cases to district level in order to improve access to diagnosis and treatment at all levels,” he said.

Furthermore, the country then introduced a free injection to treat Drug Resistant (DR) TB for all patients suffering from resistant TB.

The Health Minister also called upon stakeholders, civil society organisations, individuals and the society at large to work together to reduce the proportion of TB affected households.

VP Chiwengwa said communities were the greatest resource at the disposal of the TB programme and they remained critical in early referrals and provision of psycho-social and treatment adherence support for patients.

“In 2020, 12 percent of the notified TB cases were referred for TB services by the community.

 “Our national Stop TB Partnership is spurring public awareness-raising activities and advocating for increased allocation of domestic resources towards the TB response,” said VP Chiwenga.

This year’s commemorations are being held under the theme ‘The Clock is Ticking’ aimed at encouraging society to hurriedly take action against the disease. In Zimbabwe, an estimate of 30 000 people are reported to fall ill with TB each year.