Over 30,000 people died of tuberculosis last year, the Ministry of Health revealed yesterday.

The ministry attributed the deaths to missed treatment opportunities as patients stayed away from seeking treatment due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Covid-19 pandemic severely disrupted access to essential TB services, and its impact reversed gains made in Kenya and globally,” Health Chief Administrative Secretary Dr Rashid Aman said yesterday.

In the same year, the country recorded an estimated 140,000 new TB cases, while that of Drug-Resistant TB (DRTB) was approximately 2,500.

A Ministry of Health fact-sheet shared yesterday showed an estimated 35,120 persons living with HIV were put on TB Preventive Treatment (TPT).

Cumulatively, out of the 178,210-targeted persons for TPT in 2021, an estimated 43,888, about 48 per cent, were successfully put on TPT.

Other tools

Dr Aman explained that the Covid-19 pandemic further led to missed treatment opportunities as patients and other people seeking diagnosis for the opportunistic infectious disease stayed away from health facilities for the most part of 2020 and early last year.

He was speaking at the Mathare North Health Centre where he unveiled a range of newly developed tools for TB screening, diagnosis and prevention.

Under the New Tools Project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), Kenya will witness the introduction of treatment courses for TB preventive therapy, a three-month rifampicin-isoniazid (3RH) regimen to benefit 13,000 persons.

The other tools that were launched also include 38 TRUENAT point-of-care nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) equipment kits and 77,500 reagents for testing for TB and 15,500 for detecting rifampicin resistance. TRUENAT is a micro real-time-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for rapid diagnosis of leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that affects humans and animals. “The launch of iNTP has come at an opportune time.”

Also unveiled were 8 Lightweight portable digital chest X-ray equipment kits with accompanying software for computer-aided detection of TB, two interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) machines to aid in the detection of TB infection and medication sleeves for 5,000 patients as part of digital adherence technology and connectivity solution for all TB diagnostic equipment.

Kenya is one of the seven countries in the world benefiting from this support.

In 2021, about 804 persons with multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR TB) out of a target of 2,000, were diagnosed and put on treatment.

“The statistics above, therefore, show that the country is not performing to the expectation and commitments that we signed to in the UN High-Level Meeting (UNHLM) of 2018,” Dr Aman said.

Patient care

Despite notable achievements made in these areas of diagnosis and treatment of TB and TN Preventive Treatment, the country, Dr Aman noted, continues to experience the challenge of TB burden.

“This, therefore calls for TB case finding and laboratory diagnosis as the backbone to quality patient care and disease surveillance. Our health care workers need to be well equipped with skills and knowledge to operate, service and interpret patient results for better management of our patients,” he noted.

The tools, he pointed out, also present a great opportunity for us to undertake research as a country in optimising gains towards the End TB strategy.

World Health Organisation described the introduction of the new tools as a game-changer that will improve access to quality point of care services, especially at peripheral facilities and hard-to-reach regions.