Tuberculosis: Clergy Seeks Regular Awareness Campaign On Causes, Treatment

The Federal Government has been advised to always ensure regular awareness campaigns on the causes and treatment of tuberculosis towards combating the disease in the country.

A Catholic Priest, Reverend Father Kenedy Ohazuru -ike gave the advice when a delegation from the Ministry of Health took the awareness campaign to St Donald’s Catholic Church, Karu Abuja

According to Reverend Father Ohazuruike, the church will not relent in collaborating with stakeholders in the fight against tuberculosis which he described as a deadly disease.

He said regular sensitization would go a long way to inform Nigerians on the rights and policies of the government to ameliorate the plight of Nigerians in terms of health coverage.

“I have heard of Tuberculosis a very long time, something I heard of very many years ago, ”But it was new to me when I visited the hospital when I was not feeling too well and after describing the symptoms, the Dr. Sent me for a test and one of the tests was for TB, I was wondering why, and he said you have to do it you meet with the sick people every time.”

“That was when I heard about Gene-Xpert, I paid a lot for the test though the result came out negative. Therefore the awareness has to increase if I had known that the test is free I wouldn’t have paid the huge for the test.”

”If I with my level of communication I was surprised at the test then you imagine some other people. So with this we will have up to a week creating awareness to our parishioners.”

Also speaking, the Catholic Women organisation President of St parish Mrs Collect Egbuchi pledged to educate women on the need to protect their households from the disease.

According to Egbuchi “I know that Tuberculosis is a continuous disease and is airborne, but in the past we always thought that this Tuberculosis may be due to what you take but just now because of the awareness that is being created we now saw that anyone can be infected with TB.”

”For the children, I know they do give them TB dot but I never heard that about the adult. We are just trying to see what we can do by playing our part,” he said.

Earlier the representative of the Ministry of Health, Mrs Stella Ekeh said the church programme is one of the line-up activities to sensitize more people to the disease.