News / Health
$30 000 needed to treat a multi-drug-resistant person for TB
06 Feb 2016 at 08:51hrs | Views
MDC-T MP Ruth Labode has said the treatment for TB patient who is multi-drug-resistant person for minute which is happening quite frequently and is frightening cost $30 000.00.
Speaking in parliament Labode thanked Members of Parliament for their 120 signatures that will be sent to Geneva starting on TB related issues.
"I just wanted to discuss a little bit about multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. This is a TB, we have all known that there is TB in our lives but it has changed because people could not endure long term treatment, they would stop and the TB bacteria became clever and started changing its shape which meant that now it could not be treated with existing drugs," she said.
She said when they were treating it for six months, it cost something like $3 000.00, it cost government because TB treatment has always been for free.
"Now the minute it becomes multi-drug-resistant which is happening quite frequently and it is frightening, we now need $30 000.00 to treat a multi-drug-resistant person, can we afford it?" she said.
"We cannot, so what is our role? Our role is to ensure that everybody who is diagnosed with TB, we have to urge our relatives and people in the constituencies to say imwai mushonga, take your tablets on a daily basis. Why are people defaulting? They are defaulting because TB drugs cause gastritis. You need food to take them and people do not have food but the danger of that is, we cannot afford the other side."
Labode said in the past, when they worked at Thorngrove TB Hospital, every time one is diagnosed with TB, was given beans, cooking oil and so on, for you to be able to take your tablets.
"So, as Members of Parliament, we have to urge our communities to take their drugs once they are diagnosed with TB. The danger is that, it is not only those who work in the mines that will get TB, even among ourselves here, people of my age and those with diabetes; all we need is one of us to have multi-drug resistant TB. Some of us will catch and we will die because only 50% of the people actually are healed," she said.
"This TB has become more dangerous than HIV by the way, because with HIV if you go on ARVs, you can be treated or maintain it and we are getting to zero zero but with TB we are not getting to zero. This is because TB is changing its shape in our bodies and becoming something else we do not know."
Labode said one of the things that create a problem is our TB is 100% funded by donors but our problem is distances. Somebody comes from UMP, Binga or Shurungwi and is diagnosed with TB, gets the first stock.
"For the next one, he needs about $5 for transport and does not have the money, he stops. By doing that now he is breeding that multi-drug resistance. You normally start feeling better after two months so you think you are okay when you are actually not okay. That is the time you need to finish your course," Labode said.
"The multi-drug resistant TB takes two years to be treated. Let us say you are working for a company like Delta for example, will they keep treating you for two years because you are now actually a danger to your colleagues within the company. So your job is likely to end. What is worrying also is; for that two years, six months you will be getting injections."
Labode said how many people can endure that in addition to that injection of six months, one will take 140 000 tablets in two years.
"The tablets also have side effects. This is the multi-drug resistant course. One may become deaf, develop blackish itchy rash/spots and this is why people end up saying okungasi kufa yikuphi, let me just die," she said.
"So, we have an obligation to ensure that we get our people treated. We urge them because the treatment is free. Our only problem is of access and I think that the Ministry of Health and Child Care is really making an effort because these drugs are being moved by the European Union to the rural areas but the challenge maybe from the district to the rural health centre. As Members of Parliament, take it upon yourself that once in a while you go to the health institutions; ask how many TB patients they have and whether they are taking their medication. What they are now doing is that if you are diagnosed with TB, they call the person who lives with you and ask them to supervise the treatment."
"So you parliamentarians are going to be the vanguards of this thing because it is a bombshell and as Zimbabwe we cannot afford it," she said.
"We really cannot afford to go the multi-drug resistant way. Let us implement what is called the Direct Treatment Observation (DOT) strategy which means you the relative are the ones observing that the person is taking his TB medication."
Speaking in parliament Labode thanked Members of Parliament for their 120 signatures that will be sent to Geneva starting on TB related issues.
"I just wanted to discuss a little bit about multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. This is a TB, we have all known that there is TB in our lives but it has changed because people could not endure long term treatment, they would stop and the TB bacteria became clever and started changing its shape which meant that now it could not be treated with existing drugs," she said.
She said when they were treating it for six months, it cost something like $3 000.00, it cost government because TB treatment has always been for free.
"Now the minute it becomes multi-drug-resistant which is happening quite frequently and it is frightening, we now need $30 000.00 to treat a multi-drug-resistant person, can we afford it?" she said.
"We cannot, so what is our role? Our role is to ensure that everybody who is diagnosed with TB, we have to urge our relatives and people in the constituencies to say imwai mushonga, take your tablets on a daily basis. Why are people defaulting? They are defaulting because TB drugs cause gastritis. You need food to take them and people do not have food but the danger of that is, we cannot afford the other side."
Labode said in the past, when they worked at Thorngrove TB Hospital, every time one is diagnosed with TB, was given beans, cooking oil and so on, for you to be able to take your tablets.
"So, as Members of Parliament, we have to urge our communities to take their drugs once they are diagnosed with TB. The danger is that, it is not only those who work in the mines that will get TB, even among ourselves here, people of my age and those with diabetes; all we need is one of us to have multi-drug resistant TB. Some of us will catch and we will die because only 50% of the people actually are healed," she said.
Labode said one of the things that create a problem is our TB is 100% funded by donors but our problem is distances. Somebody comes from UMP, Binga or Shurungwi and is diagnosed with TB, gets the first stock.
"For the next one, he needs about $5 for transport and does not have the money, he stops. By doing that now he is breeding that multi-drug resistance. You normally start feeling better after two months so you think you are okay when you are actually not okay. That is the time you need to finish your course," Labode said.
"The multi-drug resistant TB takes two years to be treated. Let us say you are working for a company like Delta for example, will they keep treating you for two years because you are now actually a danger to your colleagues within the company. So your job is likely to end. What is worrying also is; for that two years, six months you will be getting injections."
Labode said how many people can endure that in addition to that injection of six months, one will take 140 000 tablets in two years.
"The tablets also have side effects. This is the multi-drug resistant course. One may become deaf, develop blackish itchy rash/spots and this is why people end up saying okungasi kufa yikuphi, let me just die," she said.
"So, we have an obligation to ensure that we get our people treated. We urge them because the treatment is free. Our only problem is of access and I think that the Ministry of Health and Child Care is really making an effort because these drugs are being moved by the European Union to the rural areas but the challenge maybe from the district to the rural health centre. As Members of Parliament, take it upon yourself that once in a while you go to the health institutions; ask how many TB patients they have and whether they are taking their medication. What they are now doing is that if you are diagnosed with TB, they call the person who lives with you and ask them to supervise the treatment."
"So you parliamentarians are going to be the vanguards of this thing because it is a bombshell and as Zimbabwe we cannot afford it," she said.
"We really cannot afford to go the multi-drug resistant way. Let us implement what is called the Direct Treatment Observation (DOT) strategy which means you the relative are the ones observing that the person is taking his TB medication."
Source - Byo24News
