By Ruth Oginyi
Center for Development and Reproductive Health (CDRH) and GRADE Foundation with support of the WHO, StopTB partnership challenge facility for civil society CFCS Monday organized a training for journalists and other on- air-personalities on gender- transformative and rights – based TB programming in southeast.
Professor Daniel Oshi and founder of Center For Development and Empowerment Foundation(CDRH) the training technical lead in his presentation urged journalists to develop a working plan in other to reach out to communities on Tuberculosis.
According to him, the workshop aimed to create an enabling environment for improved TB case finding through strengthening women/girls organizations and TB CSOs led gender transformative and rights based approaches to TB programing.
The training which took place in Enugu state southeast Nigeria urged the media practitioners drawn from Ebonyi, and Anambra state to work on stating gender and human rights issues on Tuberculosis program in their various media houses.
The one year project is funded by Stop Tb partnership with the WHO.
Earlier, the Executive Director CDRH Mr. Isaac Alobu said people should avoid over crowded environment to reduce the spread of TB.
Alobi said it is necessary to overcrowded environmental to reduce cases of tuberculosis among the people.
“We organized what we called a one-day orientation and sensitization workshop for the media practitioners from Ebonyi and Anambra state specifically to interact and discuss issues related to gender and human rights aspects of Tuberculosis in Nigeria.
“The purpose of this orientation is to develop action plans on how to carry out or pass on messages in the area of gender and human rights in tuberculosis using different media platforms, including electronic, print, and social media.
“Tuberculosis is an airborne infectious disease. it’s transmitted via droplets and nobody will say that he/she is free from being at risk of contracting it.
“The question is how can one protect himself from Tuberculosis being an airborne disease? The best and most effective way to prevent members of the public from contracting it is to fish out all the suspected cases of tuberculosis, diagnose them and place them on treatment. Once that is done more than 60 percent of chances of passing on the diseases to members of the public have been realized.
“The next thing that is very key is that people should avoid overcrowded environments. Overcrowding is a potential factor that aids the transmission of not only tuberculosis but any infectious diseases that are transmitted via droplet that is airborne.
“And so whether inside a vehicle people should be as much as possible conscious of opening the windows of the car, or bus so that there will be cross ventilation, in the church people should be able to avoid locking up themselves and even in residential quarters you should be able to have well-ventilated area.
“The next thing that is very key in preventing tuberculosis is to educate members of the public on what are the clinical features or signs and symptoms of TB. Anybody who is coughing and the cough has persisted for more than 2 weeks without stopping even with medications the person should suspect TB and then quickly go to the nearest health facility for diagnosis and appropriate care.
“If the person is also apart from suffering from a cough or experiencing a chronic cough of two weeks or more, but it’s associated with fever, restlessness, loss of body weight feeling weak, and loss of appetite, night sweats all these signs point to tuberculosis. The best option is to go to the nearest facility.
“On the side of the members of the public, we should be conscious we should be our brother’s keepers, that is to say, if you see anybody experiencing any of the aforementioned symptoms you should politely and persuasively encourage such individual to go to the nearest facility for further investigation and management.
“We are not saying that every cough is due to tuberculosis but it is better to play safe.
“Go to the facilities it is the primary duty of health practitioners to differentiate between chronic cough and tuberculosis or is the result of other medical or health challenges.
“On the side of the community leaders and gender, we should know that we live in a society that depicts masculine or patriarchal yes we should encourage our women and girls to seek and give them the freedom to seek care. The era of saying a woman or young lady has to wait until official permission from either the husband, boyfriend or father, or anybody before she goes for medical attention O think is a bit primitive it is no longer obtainable and so allows our women, girls to access care as at when doing without undue hindrance.
“For the media we have three major areas we want them to focus on, passing on messages on causes of Tuberculosis to the members of the public especially the rural areas so that they would understand that tuberculosis is not caused by any poison or witchcraft or whatever because these is why many people do not come out early to seek medical care.
“To highlight the cardinal signs , symptoms of tuberculosis so that when people now experience or come across those who are experiencing such symptoms they will be able to encourage them or come out for other investigations and management.
“Finally, to encourage especially the opinion leaders and members of the public to give our women and young girls every support needed to come for medical attention. He said
