Executive Director, Grassroots Development and Empowerment (GRADE) Foundation, Dr. Patrick Amah has advised the citizenry to always seek medical attention over signs of Tuberculosis.
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Amah gave the advice in Enugu during a media training on Gender and Human Rights for Tuberculosis Programmes organised by Grassroots Development & Empowerment (GRADE) Foundation and CDRH, with support of Stop TB Partnership Challenge Facility For Civil Society (CFCS).
The one-day training themed: Empowering Women Drives Change, Project for the Promotion of Gender for Transformative and Right based TB programme which drew 17 journalists from across Anambra and Ebonyi States.
“The training is targeted at equiping the media to assist in disseminating information about TB, generally for those who are yet to be informed so they start on time to prevent the scourge.
“People die of TB because of ignorance, superstition and late presentation. Some superstitiously do believe that they have been poisoned and be going from one spiritual house to another seeking for solution.
“If you have cough that persists for two weeks or more, go for test that’s what we’re saying. We want to take advantage of the media to disseminate the information to the grassroots”, he stated.
Still On TB risk factors, Amah said that one has to be conscious of their environment, because TB is an airborne disease, one never can tell when and where it will come from.
“We decided to lay more emphasis on women because in the past, it has been men affair. Now we want to reverse the trend to involve the women.
“One, they are more in number. Secondly, they talk a lot, so more people will hear them more than the men. That’s even the main reason the proposal for the training was approved”, he reiterated.
Also speaking, Executive Director, Centre for Development and Reproductive Health (CDRH), Dr Alobu Isaac decried lack of infection control mechanisms in various health facilities across the country.
He said several health workers have lost their lives as a result of lack of such control measures and negligence in the hospitals.
Describing infection control as critical in any health facility setting, Alobu explained that the measure involved protection of not only health workers and patients, but visitors alike against any infectious disease.
He said, “We’ve actually lost lots of health workers both in medical and paramedical due to lack of adequate infection control measures in our hospitals, whether tertiary, secondary or primary”.
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