FINDING MISSING AND MISSED TUBERCULOSIS CASES THROUGH ACTIVE CASE FINDING IN THE COMMUNITY PALI 2022

A. Preamble: As part of the activities to celebrate the World Lung Day 2022, the PATS awarded us a grant to conduct advocacy, community awareness, education and screening for  tuberculosis in Nigeria. The event held as planned and was a huge success.

Some pictures of the events have been uploaded to various social media angles with thousands of reach. 

B. PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

I. Pre-Screening Awareness, Education and Sensitization

In collaboration with the State TB Control program we were able to identify hotspot aside our initial venue for the events. This was Otan Ayegbaju, the headquarters of Boluwaduro Local Government , Osun State , Nigeria. There are  5 major towns and some villages in the community. We recruited volunteers from these communities and trained them about tuberculosis. In their customised T shirts, they made visits  to major markets, town halls, schools, and public places within communities in Otan Ayegabju, Igbajo, Eripa and other places to create awareness and sensitise about the screening program. Students were addressed on assembly grounds. Pamphlets, flyers, leaflets, and souvenirs in local languages were distributed. The truck went through the towns announcing the events and providing TB education and jingles. The King of Otan Ayegbaju was especially supportive. He provided the palace square for the events.

This was carried out September 21-24th 2022

II. Tuberculosis Screening and Case Finding

We conducted free screening and testing with a sputum test using GenXpert for members of the communities at the palace court. This was done in collaboration with staff of the Local TB Control program. Health education was provided in local language by a consultant physician who addressed the gathering. There was an interactive question and answer session which was well received by the attendees and clarified all doubts and myths about TB. After the education session, participants produced sputum specimen which were sent to the central laboratory in the state for GenXpert. Sputum specimen were collected from ninety nine participants. Data of everyone tested were properly documented and collated in line with TB control program. As at the last follow up, about 30 specimens have been tested of which 10 were positive for PTB and one Rifampicin resistance detected. The event held on September 24th 2022

On the 25th September, we made an appearance on the national television where one of our team members talked on tuberculosis and smoking, World Lung Day 2022 its importance. The coverage was close to a million.

III. Linkage with Healthcare Facility for Treatment  Ten  persons confirmed positive for active TB have already commenced treatment, while efforts are being made to fast track processing of other specimen.

C. Program Location & Date: The program held from the 21-24th September 2022 at Otan Ayegbaju and surrounding communities, Osun State, Nigeria . This change was necessitated due to cultural activities in Ile Ife which will affect the community activities at that time and secondly, as suggested by the state TB control. The education and screening could also not hold on 25th September as earlier planned, which was a Sunday and virtually all our contacts would not be available. We decided to hold it on the 24th September 2022.

D. Impact: The project was able to train at least 20 volunteers on patient- friendly health education techniques on TB and smoking cessation, provided health education for at least 1-2Million people and screened hundred for active TB. Reports from the TB clinic indicated that that after the events, many more people have been coming to the clinic for TB testing.

The Director of TB Control in the State, Dr. Gbadamosi was so excited and happy with the exercise. He was full of appreciation. He claimed the number of presumptive TB cases from the events was more than what the communities reports in 4months together. He suggested closer partnership for more collaborative projects. He promised to build on what has been achieved with this events working to ensure contact tracing of patients. Similarly, the King and the chiefs were excited about the events. 

Finally, we thank the PATS for this initiative and for grant.

By O. Olufemi Adewole (2022)