Global Fund TB Project in Busia County: Japheth Ocho’s Story
“I was brought here and they took me for a chest X-ray. They realized that one side of my lungs was badly affected.” The 23-year-old Japheth, recalls how he had walked from one facility to another to find a diagnosis for what had been ailing him.
The young man, a second born in a family of four from Marachi village, Matayos Sub-County earns his livelihood from a fish factory and some time at construction sites on casual contracts.
Japheth started feeling unwell while in Mombasa County where he worked as an hotelier. He narrates that he could feel cold and suffer from headaches frequently. He sought treatment from a number of facilities far and wide. At one point while visiting the grandfather in Homa Bay County he was misdiagnosed as suffering from only Malaria, and sometimes Typhoid. Determined to get back his health, he called his mother and broke the news of his predicament. I told her, “Mom I am suffering, I want to come there so that I can see how I can be helped. I was brought here and they took me for an X-ray, where they realized that one of my lungs had been badly affected.” He narrates.
Determined to get back his health, he called his mother and broke the news of his predicament. I told her, “Mom I am suffering, I want to come there so that I can see how I can be helped. I was brought here and they took me for an X-ray, where they realized that one of my lungs had been badly affected.” He narrates.
”“So with all the strategies that we are putting in place, we have one goal, that come 2035 as a country, as a county and as a sub-county Tuberculosis should be eliminated. The goal of the County is to eliminate TB by 2035.” Ms Rachel Manya: Coordinator for Leprosy and Tuberculosis Activities – Matayos Sub County
Upon being tested, Busia County Referral Hospital (BCRH) staff informed him that he had been infected with TB. He received the news shockingly and wondered how he had contracted the perceived deadly disease. He continues to narrate how thoughts about death engulfed his mind due to the sad news. “I thought about death… you know; TB had killed someone around our home. So, when I got infected, I just knew I would follow him. I took advantage of the treatment and took the drugs well.”
Program Intervention
In 2021 in the Matayos sub-county, there were 294 people with TB on disease treatment. From this number, 241 successfully finished treatment. However, there is one negative indicator in the region, that is death. The coordinator sadly noted that most people seek medical attention very late when they cannot respond well to treatment. “So late diagnosis is the most common cause of death among our patients.” She says. Other causes include a low index of suspicion among healthcare workers, and poverty leading to malnutrition.
According to the sub-county coordinator for Leprosy and Tuberculosis activities, Rachel Manya, there is a stigma surrounding TB disease in the community. The community sees people who suffer from TB as being HIV positive too. The way TB presents itself can also contribute to stigma, according to Ms. Rachel Manya. People infected with TB can present with persistent coughs and coughing blood. “So, people are like, now that you have the cough, you will be able to transmit to us. So you find a good number of them getting stigmatized in their community,” she explains.
Impact Research and Development Organization (IRDO) supports various TB activities both at the community and the facility level- defaulter tracing, giving health messages to the community, capacity building Community Health Workers (CHVs) and healthcare workers, logistics for holding meetings in communities, and provision of airtime to healthcare workers in high-volume facilities for tracing treatment interrupters through phone calls.
The Outcome
He says he faithfully took his medication as advised by the clinicians. “I was told that if I miss taking the medicines even once, I would start again from scratch. I took it seriously and I followed the instructions the doctors gave me.” By the time he was beginning his treatment, he was weighing 42kg. Currently, he weighs 58 kg with one month remaining to complete the treatment.
He is responding well to the drugs. The hospital readily supplies him with the drugs whenever he runs out of them. His mother supports him by reminding him of the time for taking medication.
Japheth is thankful to the team at BCRH and IRDO CHVs for how they have treated him since he was enrolled for treatment. He happily appreciates how they could sacrifice their time to visit him at home to find out how he is doing.
He encourages his fearful peers who are infected with TB to take their medicines seriously since the free medication is available for people like him.