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BREAKING
Al Mayadeen's correspondent: The Lebanese Army is continuing its investigations and will later announce any information that does not affect the confidentiality of the investigation
Al Mayadeen's correspondent: It has not yet been determined whether the detainees belong to ISIS or another organization
Al Mayadeen's correspondent: Around 10 people of different nationalities, including Lebanese nationals, were detained
Al Mayadeen's correspondent: The Lebanese army arrested a number of people in the Matn area of Mount Lebanon with possession it has not disclosed
Gaza Civil Defense spokesman: We have strong indications that there are martyrs, injuries, and trapped people in the Salah al-Din area
Gaza Civil Defense spokesman: Citizens should avoid Salah al-Din Street because anyone who approaches it is at risk of being directly targeted
Gaza Civil Defense spokesman: Reality is that there is a very limited retreat of the vehicles, with the occupation forces providing cover undeer fire up to Salah al-Din Street
Gaza Civil Defense spokesman: Claims that the Israeli occupation has withdrawn from areas in the neighborhoods of al-Zaytoun, al-Tuffah, and al-Shujaiya are false
Hamas: The two delegations stressed that any negotiations must lead to the achievement of our people's goals and aspirations, foremost among which is ending the war and the complete withdrawal of enemy forces
Hamas: A delegation from the Hamas leadership, led by the head of the leadership council, Mohammad Darwish, met with an Islamic Jihad delegation, headed by its Secretary-General, Ziyad al-Nakhalah

Kenya Has Been Struggling With Tuberculosis Detection

  • By Al Mayadeen Net
  • Source: The Guardian
  • 3 Dec 2021 20:29
4 Min Read

With the rise of COVID-19, detection and treatment of tuberculosis - which kills four times the number of Kenyans than COVID-19 does - has plummeted.

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  • Sister Veronicah Wanjiru of Mbungoni Catholic Clinic in Mombasa, Kenya, 2016.
    Sister Veronicah Wanjiru of Mbungoni Catholic Clinic in Mombasa, Kenya, 2016.

The Kenyan government, with similar amounts of efforts it has put into containing COVID-19, according to The Guardian, can contain the Tuberculosis crisis which ravages the African country. 

Tuberculosis, albeit not popularly addressed, kills four times the number of people in Kenya than COVID-19 had in Kenya since the start of the pandemic. 

The Guardian narrates an anecdote in their news article piece, posing a real life scenario where a community health workier in Kibera, a slum in Nairobi, knows of a woman who was diagnosed with TB. The woman, who is a mother of young children, refused to get checked at a tuberculosis clinic in fear of going to quarantine. After being tested positive, before the woman could get treated, she died two weeks later. 

  • Kibera, a disadvantaged neighborhood which homes 250,000 Kenyans.
    Kibera, a disadvantaged neighborhood which homes 250,000 Kenyans.

The community worker, who goes by the name Violet Chemesunte, mourned and expressed dissatisfaction, “She didn’t need to die. TB is curable. The only thing you need is to be diagnosed early enough.”

In 2020, estimates say that 140,000 people in Kenya had tuberculosis, 21,000 of which died of the disease, which, statistically, is the equivalent of two buses crashing and killing all passengers daily. 

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The symptoms are very similar to those of COVID-19: cough, fever, night sweats, and weight loss. The disease is airborne, just like COVID-19, and it kills about 50% of all infected. 

However, with increasing rates this year and fewer people getting tested, undetected and untreated people were on the rise. There was a 15% decrease in detection rates, which, according to the Ministry of Health, is "largely attributable to the pandemic." 

Although much of the trouble could be attributable to the pandemic, which diverted attention from the disease, the government's mismanagement of the disease is also accountable. 

Enos Okumu Masini, a doctor who serves as the head of the National Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Program with the Ministry of Health, asserted that "less than half of Kenya's plan to tackle TB has adequate funding." He also said that more than 66% of TB cases under the age of 15 are unreported, shedding light on the government's lack of diagnosis. 

Masini, who correlated the TB cases to bus accidents, said that if the number of deaths was attributed to bus accidents, there would be an "uproar" and the government would scurry to intervene in the crisis, which it has not been doing since the "resources are not aligned to the magnitude of the disease." 

Amref Health Africa, however, has campaigned for tuberculosis awareness. Information on how TB can potently affect people was distributed across public transport facilities. Another way in which the organization dealt with the spread of the disease was through creating an automated machine that asks 5 questions, mainly about symptoms, called "ATM". If the ATM obtains a "yes" to any of the symptoms, the machine requests the user to lodge in a sputum sample for testing. 

The screening machine has aided 80,000 people in testing for TB between November 2019 and May 2021, according to Anne Munene, project officer for Amref Health Africa. 

Although COVID-19 has been a setback for tuberculosis detection, Munene sees the issue as an opportunity for innovation and awareness in Kenya, which holds 83% of all TB cases worldwide. 

  • Tuberculosis
  • COVID-19
  • Kenya

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