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“Reaching the missed TB cases, the untold story of the Ghanaian TB patient.”

Ghana has made great strides in increasing TB case notifications over the last decade and reached 15,541 TB cases (forms) in 2013. While there has been this progress, the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that Ghana still misses to detect about 4,000 TB cases every year. Some of the contributing factors between the expected TB cases and those that are actually detected include the old prejudices and stigma still attached to the disease, as many Ghanaians believe tuberculosis is a ghost disease. This misconception makes the suspected TB cases delay in seeking early TB test and treatment. They often come to the health facilities very late to avert death and any TB related complications. Low index of suspicion of TB among health care workers also contribute to delay in detecting and treating TB. There is also a general weak capacity to provide quality clinical care to TB patients by health care workers thus the reason for the high TB deaths (7%) in TB patients on treatment.

The fight against TB relies heavily on being able to detect and treat TB cases early enough to reduce further transmission in the community and prevent unnecessary deaths due to TB. To achieve this, both the community and healthcare services have an important role to play.

In light of this, USAID TB CARE I funded the production of a TB Case Detection Awareness project for the purpose of improving TB case detection and reducing TB deaths. I-ZAR Consults was hired on this project and the launch specifically targeted policy makers, development partners, senior managers of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Ghana Health service (GHS) as well as other relevant government ministries and department for the purpose of advocating a continued funding of TB control services across the country in order to sustain gains made over the last decade.