The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka, Senior Reporter
ZIMBABWE has made significant strides in the fight against tuberculosis (TB) with the country recording fast declines in TB incidence and TB mortality rates among high TB burden countries in the world.
This sets the country on course towards ending tuberculosis (TB) within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework by 2030, which the country has fully adopted.
Zimbabwe is still one of eight countries in Africa belonging to the top 30 countries with high TB, TB/HIV and DR-TB burden in the world.
According to the 2017 Global TB report of 2017, TB incidence decline has exceeded four percent decline per year since 2010.
Other countries that have achieved the same list are Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, the Russian Federation, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia.
Globally, TB incidence is falling at about two percent annually. Efforts are to improve to between four and five percent per year by 2020 to reach the first milestones of the “End TB Strategy”.
According to the latest Global TB report, Zimbabwe has also recorded notable TB mortality rate decline exceeding six percent per year since 2010, the fastest in the world.
Globally, the TB mortality rate is falling by about three percent per year.
Other countries that have also recorded TB mortality rates of decline exceeding six percent include Ethiopia, the Russian Federation, the United Republic of Tanzania and Vietnam.
The report also names Zimbabwe as one of the high TB burden countries with high levels of treatment coverage in 2016 of above 80 percent. Other countries include Brazil, China, the Russian Federation, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
The report however, says Zimbabwe ranks lowest in terms of domestic funding among nine low-income high TB burden countries.
“Recent developments in India illustrate the potential to increase domestic funding in some high TB burden countries.
“In the group of nine low-income high TB burden countries, the proportion of the reported TB budget funded from domestic sources in 2017 ranges from 0,3 percent in Zimbabwe to 24 percent in Liberia,” reads the report in part.
Zimbabwe gets its TB funding from the Global Fund and other international partners.
In the group of 15 lower-middle-income high TB burden countries the proportion ranges from 6,8 percent in Bangladesh to 88 percent in Congo.
The report further states that in the group of six upper-middle-income countries, the proportion ranges from 30 percent in Namibia to 100 percent in the Russian Federation.
Zimbabwe’s efforts in the fight against TB received international recognition last month after the country scooped two awards at the Union World Conference on Lung Health in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The country was honoured in the TB procurement and supply chain category for excellent work in accurately quantifying the procurement orders.
Development AID from People to People (DAPP) from Zimbabwe also scooped a Partners Engagement Prize to make it two for the country.
The second edition of the TB Awards Gala was held on the sidelines of the conference on 10 October.
TB is the ninth leading cause of death worldwide and the leading cause from a single infectious agent, ranking above HIV and Aids.
In 2016, there were an estimated 1,3 million TB deaths among HIV negative people and an additional 374 000 deaths among HIV-positive people, worldwide.— @irielyan
