Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony says one of the major challenges in the treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) among patients is their nonconformance with medication regimen.
His comment came Thursday, as Guyana joined the rest of the world in observance of “World TB Day”.
The minister noted that interrupted treatment can have a devastating impact on patients, and pleaded with the 500 persons living with active TB in the country to follow the rules.
“It is one of those diseases where you have to be on treatment for a relatively long period of time, in some cases between four to nine months you have to be on treatment, and if your treatment is interrupted for whatever reason, then that can pose a challenge because sometimes the person can develop multiple drug resistance TB, which is even more difficult to treat,” he said.
The minister noted that the Directly Observed Therapy (DOTS) workers ensure persons on medication stay on course.
“They would go home to the patient and be able to observe them taking their medication and in that way, we get better compliance and we prevent defaulting and we also prevent people from getting multiple drug resistance TB,” Dr Anthony said.
This programme experienced some difficulties during the early period of the Covid-19 pandemic. The team improvised and used ‘video dots’ where the patients recorded themselves taking the medication.
The health minister reported that with the drop in Covid-19 cases, the routine home visits are back on schedule.
“Nevertheless, we made sure that we have the types of medication to treat these patients, so if we find patients with multiple resistance TB, we are able to treat them because we have the meds available,” Dr Anthony said.
Regarding Covid-19 and TB, Minister Anthony said it is one of the comorbidities that could cause hospitalisation. He said depending on the severity of the illness in patients, doctors would make an assessment on how best to provide treatment.
Persons can get TB from being exposed to the cough of an infected person. Some common symptoms include weight loss, low-grade fever, persistent coughing with blood and night sweats.
