Ministry to import all TB drugs
The Kenyan Government will now be the sole buyer of all TB drugs to be used in the country. This means that it will also be the sole supplier of the drugs both for public and private outlets, including chemists.
Public Health minister Beth Mugo said the move was meant to ensure that the drugs prescribed for patients were the right ones. The minister said her ministry had established that there was no uniformity in TB prescriptions.
In some cases health workers were giving wrong prescriptions to patients, resulting in an increase in resistance to TB drugs. Patients were also blamed for ignoring prescriptions. Mrs Mugo urged private practitioners to get their drugs from the government.
On treatment
The minister said this in an interview with the Nation while attending a funeral in Mathira East, Nyeri. She said there are about 500 cases of multi-drug resistant TB in the country. Out of these, about 300 are on treatment.
A special ward had been opened at the Kenyatta National Hospital to deal with the problem, she said. According to the minister, it costs about Sh1.3 million to treat a single case of drug-resistant TB.
Separately, it was announced that 416 people died of TB in Central Province last year. This is four per cent of the region’s 10,400 TB patients.
Central Province TB coordinator, Dr Moses Kitheka, said the death rate was worrying as the disease was curable and treatment of patients was free of charge in all public medical institutions.
“There is no reason why people should die of the disease as there is a cure,” he told journalists on Wednesday in Kerugoya town in Kirinyaga Central District during a function to mark the World TB Day.
And Mrs Mugo said she would ask Parliament to rewrite the clause on abortion for the draft constitution to win support from the church. She said it was sad that most religious leaders opposed the draft because of the clause.
