Kenya should adopt a comprehensive approach to TB prevention, identification, and treatment, incorporating social, cultural, economic, and gender-based factors.
According to experts’ over-reliance on biomedical approaches is insufficient to achieve the goal of ending TB by 2030.
Speaking at a pre-World TB Day 2024 symposium organized by the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP), The Light Consortium, and the Respiratory Society of Kenya (ReSOK), Mary Muriuki, Principal Secretary of the State Department of Health and Professional Standards at the Ministry of Health, highlighted a steady increase in TB case notifications in the country over the past three years.
“In 2023, over 97,126 new cases of tuberculosis were reported, marking a 6.9 percent increase from the previous year. This rise can be attributed to intensive case-finding efforts at the community and primary healthcare levels.”
Muriuki emphasized the importance of addressing underlying gender patterns influenced by factors such as high-risk occupations, poor health-seeking behaviors, and barriers to healthcare access. She noted that 66 percent of the TB cases notified in the previous year involved men.
“We call upon everyone to adopt a patient-centered and inclusive approach to TB control, working with communities down to the household level to tackle the TB menace at its source,” she added.
Echoing these sentiments, Professor Jeremiah Chakaya emphasized that TB is not only a biomedical issue but also a development and economic problem. He stressed the need to address social determinants of TB and alleviate poverty by improving agriculture, population nutrition, providing better housing, enhancing access to education, and addressing gender-related inequities to achieve the 2030 end TB targets.
“Poverty related factors such as undernutrition is the leading risk factor for TB, housing conditions such as poor housing quality and overcrowding also serve as risk factors associated with pulmonary TB, non-biomedical interventions such as improving peoples living conditions, we can help eliminate TB,” Prof Chakaya said.
While Dr. Immaculate Kathure, Acting Head of the National Tuberculosis Leprosy and Lung Disease Program, outlined six priority areas that Kenya will focus on in the next five years to meet the 2030 end TB targets. These include optimizing current patient-centric TB interventions, adopting new technologies and innovations, leveraging universal health coverage and community systems, tailoring interventions to sub-national epidemics, focusing on gender, human rights, and communities, and incorporating multi-sectoral engagements for effective TB control.
Speaking at the symposium, Dr. Simon Wachira of USAID TB ACT 11 emphasized the need for Kenya to improve its case-finding efforts by implementing community-based initiatives. He suggested creating TB awareness among community health promoters and conducting outreach in identified hotspots to increase case notifications.
Additionally, he recommended procuring and introducing new, more sensitive diagnostic tools, conducting drug susceptibility tests, and ensuring that everyone who tests positive is put on treatment or and people close to them on preventive therapy.
Wachira highlighted the importance of capacity building for healthcare workers in TB diagnosis, as many TB patients seeking care do not receive proper diagnosis during their initial contact with health providers.
Sharing her experience at the symposium, Caroline Mburu, a TB champion, recounted that it took her five visits to the healthcare center and two wrong diagnoses before healthcare workers correctly diagnosed her with TB.
