The national programme for the prevention and control of Tuberculosis (TB), a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)-funded project has been further boosted with the successful training of 14 new field outreach workers.
These DOTS (directly observed treatment, short course) workers are the first batch to be trained using a new curriculum and are from Regions Three, Four and Seven.
A simple graduation ceremony was held for them yesterday at the Chest Clinic, Georgetown Hospital.
CIDA, during the ceremony, handed over a compilation of all the documents that were used during the programme to the Ministry of Health.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Shamdeo Persaud urged the new field officers to stick to the task of tackling TB, which he believes can be brought under control.
He stressed that Guyana undertaken the challenge of expanding the DOTS project.
The manual handed over by CIDA, he said, would be widely used as some countries, especially those in the Caribbean, did not have a training module and would be looking at ours.
Director of National Tuberculosis Control Programme Dr Jeetendra Mohanlall said work was being done in Regions Eight and Nine to implement the programme.
Mohanlall stressed that a lot of effort was being placed into building partners with other agencies in the fight against TB.
Meanwhile CIDA’s Head of Aid Mark Mostovac said he was proud of the partnership and the project that was undertaken. He said the ceremony marked the end of a four-year project and should be looked at as the celebration of a truly successful partnership. He also applauded the new field officers for their accomplishments.
Systems have been put in place for the diagnosis and treatment of TB in Regions Two, Three, Four, Six and Ten. There have been three national TB conferences and DOTS treatment instituted in Regions Four, Six and Ten.
Over the past four years, CIDA has funded the Public Health Strengthening in Guyana (PHSG) project, a collaborative effort of the governments of Guyana and Canada directed by the Canadian Society for International Health.
This was the first bilateral project between these governments that addressed the public health challenges facing Guyana in relation to the emergence of HIV and the resurgence of TB. This project also sought to strengthen the national capacity to manage these health issues by addressing the need for trained health personnel.
The PHSG’s focus has been on capacity building to improve public health surveillance and health promotion, health personnel training, strengthening community health care and the development of a national health information system to accelerate access to quality health care data for decision marking.
TB resurged during the early to mid 1990s being linked to poverty and HIV and in response to this, Guyana in 1994, piloted a DOTS programme in Regions One, Eight and Nine.
However there was limited success and a clear strategy and guidelines were needed thus the project was started.
