Tuberculosis (TB) has killed 23 people in the West Akyem Municipality of the Eastern Region for the past three years.
The West Akyem Municipal Disease Control Officer at the Eastern Regional Health Directorate, Moses Ali Laar, who made this known in an interview with Bryt FM, disclosed that out of the figures, 43 cases were recorded within half year in 2017 with three deaths.
According to him, 184 cases were recorded, in which 131 were treated, whilst others are on medication.
He attributed the death to delay in seeking medication, adding that some TB patients move to prayer camps, while others seek for healing from herbalists who have not been authorised to admit and camp them.
Mr Ali stated that TB is not a spiritual disease, therefore, “people should seek for medical treatment instead of moving to prayer camps”. He called on people living with TB patients to stop stigmatising them, but rather support patients to cure the disease.
The disease is caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis, an organism that has caused infection in humans since Stone Age, and its airborne-aerosols containing the bacterium remain suspended in rooms for hours after being coughed out by a person with TB.
It is worrying that Ghana is currently recording 640 new cases per year in a new form of tuberculosis cases. Ghana is a Tb-endemic country; 14, 632 cases were diagnosed and put on treatment in 2015.
The National Tuberculosis Programme says 77 cases of multi-resistant TB were recorded in 2016. Out of the number, 12 have died, 15 declared cured, while 51 are still on treatment.
The National Tuberculosis Programme began the enrolment of Multidrug Resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases onto treatment in 2012, which currently has about 182 patients being treated.
In 2015, TB killed 1.5 million people worldwide, with an estimate of 26,000 people living within the sub-Sahara Africa and in Asia, particularly in India and China.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Koforidua