Anti-tuberculosis service for a world free of tuberculosis- By Servize Yesu Mwiza

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by a contagious mycobacterium (Bacillus Koch), which is transmitted by air from a sick person to a healthy individual. The bacteria that cause TB is spread through the air from person to person when a person with TB disease coughs, speaks, or sings.
The risk of transmission is related to the density of bacilli in the inspired air but also to the frequency, duration and intensity of contact with a contagious individual [Sudre, 1993].
Tuberculosis is therefore a technically controllable disease. At the Servize Yezu Mwiza (SYM), two effective diagnostic methods are available, namely the microscopy examination, which consists in analyzing the sputum sample under a microscope in search of the Koch bacilli responsible for tuberculosis.  The second one is  Gene Xpert machine  that is  a new test for tuberculosis. It can find out if a person is infected with TB, and also if the TB bacterium of the person has resistance to one of the common TB drugs, rifampicin.
With the Gene Xpert available at SYM, result is very fast and allow us to analyze 4 samples at the same time and the result can be available at most in 2 hours.

For TB patients to recover fully, the  have to take their  doses regularly. It should be noted that in 2018, SYM’s anti-tuberculosis service received and treated 45 cases of co-infected TB-HIV patients.
From January 1 to June 30, 2019, 13 cases of tuberculosis were diagnosed and were put under  intensive phase treatment  for the first 2 months and a continuation phase that lasts 4 months, which makes a total of 6 months of treatment.

Article was first published by Servize Yezu Mwiza