Nakuru County government has been implementing community Tuberculosis (TB) interventions with support from World Vision’s Global Fund TB Project since July 2021, a three-year project aimed at combating tuberculosis the disease.
The County Director for Medical Services Dr. Daniel Wainaina over the past three years, the project has focused on various community TB interventions and that one of the standout achievements includes the successful execution of outreach events in informal urban areas, which hit a 100% success rate.
He was speaking today during an evaluation meeting with stakeholders at a Nakuru hotel.
Additionally, he said 366 facility Quality Improvement meetings were supported, reaching an impressive 95% of the target and that over 4449 children under five years were screened for TB for free, a 147% achievement against the set targets at baseline.
The project also provided monthly support to 694 Linkage Assistants in health facilities and complemented the County’s focus on direct patient interventions by visiting 7,941 bacteriologically confirmed TB patients for contact screening, surpassing the target by 101%.
The County through the project also reached all the eleven sub-counties and sensitized 220 Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) on TB preventive therapy, both with a perfect 100% success rate. Schools were not left behind, with 181 sensitization meetings conducted, hitting the 100% mark.
The project also extended support to train TB champions among healthcare workers where 33 TB champions and 256 clinicians/documentation officers were identified and trained to sustain the gains made so far.
Dr. Wainaina said that the fight against TB through this project was evidence of a successful model for community health interventions, bringing the county closer to the ultimate goal of reducing TB.
The County Director reiterated the county’s commitment to raising public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences of TB.
He noted that according to the 2023 WHO report, Kenya is among the 30 high burdened countries which together contribute 85 percent of all global cases.
By Veronica Bosibori
