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Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS TB is still largely considered a poor man’s disease and is generally associated with the socially disadvantaged people living in low and middle income countries. But the story of Liam Joel Taylor proves that, being an air borne infection, TB can strike anyone anywhere. 31 years old Liam neither lives in a developing country, nor does he come from an economically or socially disadvantaged class. He lives near Liverpool and his father is a lecturer in South American Studies. In 2011, after doing his Masters in Environment and Development he went to South America to do some work on water pollution. Unfortunately the job fell through while he was there. Then he, along with his girl friend, spent around 7 months travelling to Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Columbia, and Ecuador. On his return to UK he got a job at a hospital. But two weeks later he started to get ill. “I started getting recurrent pain, especially on lifting heavy things or whi...

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland It is essential that any healthcare program in its advancement does not forget the population for whom it is  developed. At the recent 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health with the theme of ‘Confronting resistance: Fundamentals to innovations’, countries shared interesting food for thought and unique advanced approaches to people focused quality care for innovative management of MDR-TB. For an extended period of time we have had the directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS) for TB patients, in which healthcare workers observe patients as they take their medicines. It introduced task shifting, a concept that was first met with hesitancy by mostly healthcare workers and the general population at large. But it remains an internationally recommended highly efficient and cost-effective strategy for TB control. However, noting the increase in the number of patients that need to be directly observed and the limited space to...

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS Dr Enos Masini In December 2015, at the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, the TB Alliance (Global Alliance for TB Drug Development) and its partners had announced the availability of first-ever child-friendly fixed dose combinations (FDC) for treatment of drug-sensitive pediatric TB. These water dispersible FDCs are formulated in correct WHO recommended doses and have a fruity flavour. While, the hitherto available child unfriendly and inappropriate TB treatment has been blamed for poor adherence, poor treatment outcomes and increased risk of drug resistance, the uptake of the new FDCs has been rather slow. One year down the line, even though a total of 230,000 treatment courses have been ordered by over 30 countries, Kenya is the only country that has been able to actually roll them out through its public health program. 1st October 2016 onward each of the roughly 800 children diagnosed with TB every year in Kenya w...

Urvashi Prasad, CNS Correspondent, India According to the World Malaria Report 2015, malaria cases and deaths have declined over the last 15 years. However, the disease still claims 400,000 lives every year, primarily in Africa. Malaria control and elimination poses several challenges that need to be addressed in a comprehensive manner. Firstly, climate change has contributed to a spike in the number of malaria cases in several regions of the world that were previously not as badly affected. For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, including Uganda, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) teams have observed an increase in the number of malaria cases during the last few years. While several factors might be responsible for this, an increase in temperatures and rainfall caused by the El Niño has played an important role. Secondly, mosquitoes are becoming resistant to pyrethroids which is one of the most common insecticides used to tre...

Chhatra Karki, CNS Correspondent, Nepal Malaria is still a major health problem in Nepal where more than 80% people are at risk, with 4% of them being at high risk. According to the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD) of Health Ministry of Nepal, 1 million people (out of Nepal’s current population of 29,000,000) live in malaria high-risk areas with a reported incidence of more than 1 case per 1000 population per year. Dr. Dirgha Singh Bam , Senior Physician and former health secretary of Nepal government says, "Pregnant women and children under five years of age are especially at high risk and special preventive measures should be taken for them." Nepal has made remarkable progress towards controlling malaria spread, and malaria cases declined by 84% over the past decade. But, it has been a challenge for the National Malaria Control Programme to provide sufficient anti-malaria services such as early diagnosis and treatment, indoor residual spraying, distribution...

Dr Richa Sharma, CNS Correspondent, India Kusum (name changed) shudders at the mere mention of malaria. Last year she was diagnosed with malaria and suffered from weakness, fever, nausea and constant body ache for days. The news of two malaria deaths in the National Capital Region of Delhi is enough to transport her back to the nightmare of enduring it all. Malaria, a life threatening disease, is transferred through the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito, which releases Plasmodium parasite into the bloodstream. After an incubation period of 10-15 days, symptoms like fever, headache, chills, and vomiting occur in the infected individual. Multi organ involvement in adults and severe anaemia, respiratory distress or cerebral malaria in children often occur in later stages. The recent unprecedented victory of Sri Lanka’s long standing battle against malaria serves as a wake-up call to the other countries in the South East Asia region and puts malaria elimination back in the spotlight...

Tuyeimo Haidula, CNS Correspondent, Namibia “Reducing and eliminating malaria is unequivocally one of the best buys in the global health”, said Dr Tim France , Team Leader for External Communications, Asia Pacific Leaders' Malaria Alliance (APLMA) and Managing Director, Inis Communication , while speaking during a webinar last month. The webinar was held on progress made (or lack of) towards ending TB, malaria and Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) by 2030 (or earlier) . Governments have adopted the Sustainable Development Goals one of which is to end TB and malaria by 2030. France said that malaria burden in the Asia Pacific region has been halved in the last 15 years. "So we are moving incredibly quickly. But it still imposes a huge drain on health resources; it also degrades productivity, undermines household income and keeps children out of school," he said. He pointed out that close to 50,000 people die from malaria annually in Asia Pacific with the potential for this...