The Fiji Tuberculosis Unit has been able to track and record significant improvements in tuberculosis treatment completion averaging 80% treatment success rate in the last 3 years.
Divisional Medical Officer Central, Dr Tevita Qoroniasi says this is an important achievement for the fight against TB in the country given that gross failure to complete treatment results in the emergence of resistant TB strains which is a more difficult scourge to defeat.
Qoroniasi says the Ministry of Health has injected approximately $1.2 million into the program to strengthen its operation, maintain the gains from previous years and progress the program targets towards an elimination platform.
He says with this support, the program has also been able to improve community case detection and management of TB, strengthen laboratory and x-ray services for TB diagnosis and now expand into services of multi-drug resistant TB.
Qoroniasi adds Fiji has registered on average 350 bacteriologically confirmed TB cases annually in the last 3 years, and 590 cases with a case fatality rate of 12 percent were recorded in 2019 alone.
He further says tuberculosis is now a curable disease in Fiji with the availability of conventional anti-tuberculosis drugs.
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