About 123 Ghanaians fall ill of tuberculosis (TB) daily and 43 of them lose their lives because of the disease, the World Health Organisation, has said.
In 2021 alone, a total of 45,000 people fell ill of TB and 15,700 lost their lives to the disease.
The WHO further indicates that, a total of 1.3 million people died of TB in 2022 globally, making the disease the second leading infectious killer after COVID-19 and HIV and AIDS.
The frightening statistics have brought researchers and scientists from across Africa for a two-week short course to ask the relevant questions and put together ideas to address challenges in Tuberculosis (TB) management and policy formulation.
Tuberculosis, the WHO pointed out, remained a significant health burden, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, and data from the region were particularly alarming.
Professor Mrs Rita Akosua Dickson, Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), speaking at the opening of the course, noted that, the critical substantial contribution to case notifications and mortality were evident and called for action.
In 2021 alone, she said a staggering 40 percent of TB cases were either unreported or undiagnosed, while patients with resistant strains also perished.
African scientists, such as medical officers, disease surveillance officers, biostatisticians, physician assistants and laboratory scientists are attending the course which is being funded by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a research and pharmaceutical company, in collaboration with KNUST.
Prof. Dickson pointed out that the pivotal role that academic institutions played in TB management could not be overemphasized.
There was, therefore, the need to continue to provide support to early and mid-career researchers who were the driving force behind TB research to sharpen their skills and expertise so as to be able to confront the disease.
She said though notable progress of combating the TB disease in Ghana, there were still some challenges which called for concerted efforts to eradicate it across the sub region.
Prof. Ellis Owusu-Dabo, Principal Investigator for the Clinical Research, giving an overview of the disease, said studies conducted on TB in Ghana alone by himself and a team of research scientists revealed issues such as pregnancy, poverty and limited access to health, as risk factors.
He said per statistics, TB remained a public health concern within Ghana and Africa at large, adding that, the disease would continue “to be with us”.
It was, therefore, necessary to build capacities of young talented scientists who sought answers to research questions on tuberculosis to be able to hammer on ideas.
Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, Presidential Advisor on Health, said TB was curable, however, it had remained a global threat.
“TB is one of the most important micro-bacterial diseases of public health concern in Ghana.
To be able to end tuberculosis, researchers need to improve their understanding of the disease, epidemiology, genetic diversity within the causative agent and laboratory diagnosis among others”, he stated.
The government, he noted, through the National TB Control Programme, was vigorously pursuing high quality directly observed treatment short courses for care givers.
Additionally, there were ongoing expansion and enhancement strategies to help strengthen health systems to improve human resources and financing, management, service delivery and information systems towards combating the disease.
