TB declared a national emergency in Mozambique

The Mozambican government has declared Tuberculosis as a national emergency, Vista News reported today.

Ivo Garrido the health minister in an interview with the national radio service, Radio Mozambique, said public hospitals had limited capacities to treat the more than 35 000 cases which were recorded in the country last year. Only 20% of the public hospitals countrywide had the capacity to diagnose the disease.

The disease would continue to be a problem for the next 15 years, said Garrido. He said the ministry of health spent more than $5 million (about R35 000) each year in the training of health personnel and in the equipping of hospitals, yet patients were treated freely.

TB has claimed millions of lives
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa nearly 400 people in every 100 000 have TB, which killed nearly seven million people in Africa in 2004.

The global health agency also noted that the high prevailing rate of TB infections in the region were pushed by the high rate of HIV/Aids infections.

"Both the highest number of deaths and the highest mortality per capita (of TB) are in the WHO Africa region, where HIV has led to rapid growth of the TB epidemic, and increases the likelihood of dying from TB," said WHO in a fact sheet on the disease. - Sapa