Accra, Ghana’s capital, is home to the Kaneshie Polyclinic, a small health center dealing with an ongoing crisis: TB. The hospital screens all arriving patients for tuberculosis, including pregnant women, construction workers, and children with malaria, in an effort to combat the troubling statistic that two-thirds of the country’s population has tuberculosis without being diagnosed or treated. Â
Despite the fact that this preventable and curable illness has reclaimed its former position as the world’s leading infectious disease killer from COVID-19, the World Health Organization claims that forty percent of TB patients globally are not detected and, as a result, are not treated. In 2022, the WHO predicts 1.36 million deaths from the illness. The research was published on Tuesday. Â
Despite these gloomy figures, there is still hope in the fight against tuberculosis. Improvements in diagnosis and treatment are increasingly reaching underdeveloped nations, and promising clinical trial findings have boosted expectations that a vaccine could be available shortly. Infectious disease specialists who have been fighting tuberculosis for decades are confident that it may be completely eliminated with adequate resources and a dedication to reaching out to underserved areas. Â
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s epidemiologist, Puneet Dewan, termed this “the best news we’ve seen in tuberculosis in decades.” However, as a recent visit to the Kaneshie clinic showed, there are still challenges to overcome before these achievements can become a reality. The clinic has a screening process, but it has proven difficult to implement due to staffing constraints. Â
New medicines that used to need several tablets and painful injections can now be administered to patients with only a few pills each day, but only if the screening procedure is effective. Drug-resistant tuberculosis used to take two years to treat, but now it only takes six months. Patients used to take medication for up to two years, during which time their ailments sometimes worsened despite their best efforts at therapy. Because the new medications have fewer adverse effects, they are more likely to be taken as directed. Â
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria funds anti-TB medications in underdeveloped countries such as Ghana. However, the chance of such attempts succeeding is bleak. Despite recent attempts to cut expenses, TB treatment in low- and middle-income countries still costs around $150 per patient. The current phase 3 clinical trials for GSK’s M72 candidate have provided new hope for an effective TB vaccine.
However, it is unclear who owns the vaccination and how much it will cost. Increased availability of quick molecular diagnostic testing is delivering long-awaited advances in tuberculosis (TB) detection to developing-country hospitals. However, because molecular testing accounts for just about half of all TB diagnoses globally, many clinicians continue to rely on less reliable procedures.
Locating and testing close contacts, a vital step in minimizing disease spread is a major difficulty in TB control. Many people who are ill try to conceal their illness because they are ashamed of having tuberculosis. The healthcare system is unable to appropriately record or verify patient encounters due to personnel shortages. To enhance TB diagnosis rates, more molecular testing labs, skilled workers, and diagnostic resources are required.
More money must be invested so that these technologies may reach the individuals who will benefit the most from them. While there are reasons to be positive about the fight against tuberculosis, the illness nevertheless poses significant hurdles. To prevent this lethal infectious illness from taking more lives in Kaneshie and elsewhere, international cooperation and sustained financing are required.Â
News Reference Â
Nolen, S., & Gormalova, N. (2023). Ending TB Is Within Reach – So Why Are Millions Still Dying? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/health/tuberculosis-tb-treatment-vaccine-diagnosis.htmlÂ
