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Tuberculosis, it’s a bacteria which continues to infect some 9 million people every year, but in Belize there were only 129 new cases recorded last year. It’s a deadly disease if left untreated, and though the numbers in the country are low, the Health experts aren’t slacking up on their surveillance.

In order to join the rest of the world in celebrating World Tuberculosis Day 2014, the Ministry of Health organized a TB Workshop to keep the medical practitioners updated on the disease.

Today, the organizers spoke with us about the initiative:

Dr. Francis Morey - National TB Coordinator, Ministry of Health
"One of our main activities for this year is basically resensitization of our healthcare workers in regards to TB diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and evaluation of all TB that has been positively diagnosed within the year. It also entails reminding our healthcare practitioners that we do have TB in our country, that it is present, that we need to screen all individuals who presents certain symptoms of fever, a chronic cough for more than 2 week, weight loss, night sweats, chills and chest pain, which are some of the symptoms that most TB patients present themselves with on a daily basis to our polyclinics. Hence, this resensitization should serve as a reminder that we should not decrease our surveillance efforts in regards to diagnosing TB in our country." 

As part of the TB awareness, a health fair will be held on Friday, March 21st, 2014 at the Cleopatra White Polyclinic in Belize City.