April 8, 2016. Friday
By Olivia Miwil
Pictures by Edmund Samunting
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Health department will go all out in screening and treating people with tuberculosis (TB).
District health officer Dr Jiloris@Julian Frederick Dony said one strategy was to go to villages and screen those who were high risk people.
“The infection could easily spread, especially when person with TB is in confined or overcrowded places.
“High-risk people such as senior citizens, diabetic, HIV or cancer patients are more susceptible to infection as their immune system is compromised,” he said during the district-level World Tuberculosis day 2016 themed “Unite to end tuberculosis” at Inanam health clinic here yesterday.
He added it was estimated one third of the world population had latent tuberculosis, but those with low immune system would reactivate the infection in future.
As of March 28 this year, state health department recorded 1,121 cases with highest number of 157 from here, Tawau (104), Sandakan (95) and Semporna (92).
Dr Jiloris said the TB prevalence in the state was high, with 130 cases in 100,000 population and affecting mostly locals.
He also disclosed Kg Kalansanan, Sembulan and Telipok in the district had been identified as hotspots.
Their strategy would also include educating patients to be compliant with the six-month multi-drug therapy to ensure treatment was effective.
Meanwhile, he attributed better community awareness and weekly gotong royong by City Hall had been able to reduce dengue cases.
There were 172 dengue cases up until March this year as compared to 553 in the same period last year.
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