Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Raising TB awareness

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Many initiatives have been taken to control tuberculosis, but some countries are still struggling to control it.


Oman is one of the countries that has nicely controlled the TB situation during the last 15 to 20 years and is considered as a country with low incidents. Currently, the Ministry of Health is conducting a survey via telephone and the target is to reach 1,000 participants.


It was in 1881 when the bacterium was discovered but tuberculosis continues to exist affecting different age groups and nationalities.


“No one can stop it if anyone is exposed to it. TB is one of the top killers and yearly tuberculosis affect around 10 million worldwide, and kill 1 million per year in different countries,” said Dr Fatma al Yaqoubi, Head of TB and Acute Respiratory Diseases, Directorate General of Disease Surveillance and Control, Ministry of Health.


Series of activities to fight tuberculosis have been organised over the years, now the World Health Organisation has called upon countries to end tuberculosis.


“The reality is that some countries are suffering because the number of TB cases is huge while some countries have been able to reduce. Oman’s incident rate is 10 in 100,000 in the last 15 to 20 years. Oman is implementing an anti-TB strategy and working hard to reduce the incidents further,” she explained.


And one of the initiatives is the survey to analyse the understanding of public awareness and knowledge on tuberculosis and its treatment.


The aim is to reach out to at least 1,000 people to complete. The data will be analysed to come up with various plans.


The survey will be conducted over the phone in Arabic, English and Urdu. The survey is important because it will determine the next action path.


Tuberculosis is contagious and is transmitted through air and one can be exposed to it if he/she is in the proximity of an infected individual while coughing.


“Another issue is when the person is asymptomatic. The bacteria remain in the lungs for a very long time or the patient can have symptoms such as cough, sputum with blood, fever, night sweats and loss of weight.


Improvement in housing and reduction in the number of people living in one place, overcoming poverty, practising cough etiquette and generally avoiding crowded have all reduced the number of incidents,” Dr Fatma pointed out.


“As part of the TB strategy to end tuberculosis we wanted to know what is the knowledge and what are the practices in the community amongst various nationalities. What are the practices if someone has been diagnosed with tuberculosis? We also would like to know the sources of information they are using to understand the disease. This is very crucial if you want to know how to reduce the incidents further, improve the services and find out if there is any wrong information and find ways to correct it. This way we can convey the correct information,” she explained. Random numbers have been chosen of Omanis and non-Omanis across all the governorates and the age group which is more than 18 years.


This is to get the right indication of people’s awareness of tuberculosis. A group from the Ministry of Health will conduct the phone calls with the questionnaire after verbal consent.


“We encourage them to participate,” said Dr Fatma. “It doesn’t matter if you do not have all the information. We just want to know the reality. We just want to know how much people know about the disease, its transmission and treatment as well as the prevention,” she added.


(The programme of Oman Observer ‘Note It’ looks at this in-depth and can be viewed on YouTube @omanobserver.)


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