Dr. Lynda Foray told her audience that the new TB ultra-modern Laboratory will help improve diagnosis and treatment and commended partners for working in close collaboration with the Programme to achieve its desire goal. “What you are seeing and hearing in the review meeting is as a result of collaborative efforts”, Dr. Foray told her audience.
The objective of the review meeting, she said is to address district performances, identify reasons for poor performance and find solutions for improvement, data cleansing, and review update on Multi Drug Resistance (MDR), Procurement and Supplies Management (PSM) and Laboratory.
The Programme Manager furthered that this year they are focusing on the quality of care, patient centered care where they have new research going in-country, and also have mobile MGD training site for hard-to-reach areas, adding that they are also trying to stop the transmission by doing medical pains and also expanding the effort of the GenExpert sites that they have with the help of Medicines San Francais (MSF).
The National Executive Director, Civil Society Movement Against TB (CISMAT-SL), Abdulai Abubakarr Sesay reminded all that the theme for this year’s World TB Day is “Its Time” and admonished them to focus on the theme to take action, stop complaining about challenges last year and to transform their TB response in the country.
He said TB is no respecter of persons because even those talking about TB and those supporting TB patients are al at risk for the disease and that is why its time to take action to end TB.
The District Medical Officer, Bo district and Chairman for the opening ceremony, Dr. Ronald Marsh noted that the review meeting is to review their performance at district and programme level, and to identify challenges and proffer solutions in terms of moving TB/Leprosy forward in their various districts.
He said TB is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide, adding that in 2017 according to data from WHO states that 10 million people got infected with TB and within that bracket 1.6 million people were co-infected with HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Marsh told the gathering that at the moment, they have a dare problem with Multi Resistance TB which is a public health crisis and a health security threats, adding that as a Country, programmes and districts, it is their responsibility to put hands on deck to ensure that they work very hard to reduce the high incidence of TB/Leprosy in Sierra Leone.
Highlights of the opening ceremony include presentation of reports from the southern districts of Bo, Bonthe, Moyamba and Pujehun, Eastern districts of Kenema, Kono and Kailahun, Northern districts of Bombali, Port Loko, Kambia, Tonkolili and Koinadugu, and the Western Urban and Rural Areas.