Health Minister urges TB patients to use medications

The Health Ministry is taking all necessary steps to ensure patients with Tuberculosis (TB)
receive the critical treatment they need.
Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony noted that one of the major challenges the ministry is experiencing
is ensuring persons take the regimen of medication. He made this disclosure on Thursday, as
Guyana joined the rest of the world in observance of “World TB Day” Minister Anthony said
some 500 persons in Guyana are currently living with active TB.
“It is one of those diseases where you have to be on treatment for a relatively long period of
time, in some cases between four to nine months you have to be on treatment, and if your
treatment is0 interrupted for whatever reason, then that can pose a challenge, because sometimes
the person can develop multiple drug resistance TB, which is even more difficult to treat,” he
revealed. Dr. Anthony pointed out that the Directly Observed Therapy (DOTS) workers ensure
persons on medication stay on course.
“They would go home to the patient and be able to observe them taking their medication and in
that way, we get batter compliance and we prevent defaulting and we also prevent people from
getting multiple drug resistance TB,” Dr. Anthony said. This health minister noted that the
programme experienced some difficulties during the early period of the Covid-19 pandemic. The
team improvised and used ‘video dots’ where the patients recorded themselves taking the
medication.
Minister Anthony reported that with the drop in Covid-19 cases, the routine home visits are back
on schedule.  “Nevertheless, we made sure that we have the types of medication to treat these
patients, so if we find patients with multiple resistance TB, we are able to treat them because we
have the meds available,” he explained.
Dr. Anthony disclosed that regarding Covid-19 and TB, Minister Anthony said it is one of the
comorbidities that could cause hospitalisation. He said depending on the severity of the illness in
patients, doctors would make an assessment on how best to provide treatment. The minister
revealed that persons can get TB from being exposed to the cough of an infected person. Some
common symptoms include weight loss, low grade fever, persistent coughing with blood and
night sweats.
“We would see persons who would have active TB also can get with covid and that can be a
challenge in terms of how they are managed,” Dr. Anthony said. The minister noted further that
the signs and symptoms of TB are totally different from the current upper respiratory effects of
the Omicron Variant, and with chest x-rays and clinical analysis, doctors could make the
diagnosis easily.
“One of the fallacies is that TB only affects the lungs, but you can have extra pulmonary TB,
meaning TB outside of the lung. I have seen a case many years ago, where someone had TB in
their knee and that’s quite rare but it can happen,” Minister Anthony said. He added, “Some
people might be infected and I could be what is called a latent disease, so you don’t have any

signs or symptoms of it, but its dormant in your body, and some people when they get infected,
right away they will manifest with active TB.”  The minister declared that the ministry has kept
the centers open and persons can access the local medical facilities for services.