Queen mothers nationwide have been urged to use their influential position to campaign against the
stigmatization of people with Tuberculosis.
Mrs Cecilia Lodonu-Senoo, Executive Director of the Hope For Future Generation (HFFG), who made the call, said the focus on traditional leaders, especially queen mothers, was because they had the social support and could use their influential voice to get the message of TB control to the people.
She said this at a forum held at Akropong in the Eastern Region on Friday to solicit the support of Queen mothers to the fight against TB.
The programme was organized by HFFG with funding from the National TB Programme in partnership with the Akwapim Traditional Council and the Akwapim North District Health Directorate.
It was organized under the theme: “On The Move against Tuberculosis, Transforming the Fight towards Elimination.”
Mrs Lodonu-Senoo noted that the role of the queens had become crucial as statistics indicate that more women were being infected with TB.
She said apart from medical professionals contributing immensely to TB control, the focus should also be community-based because those,
who get infected with TB people, were in the communities.
Mrs Lodonu-Senoo reiterated that “Stigma is a canker, so when people are stigmatized they will not be encouraged to come out and access
treatment.”
She noted that TB should be seen as a normal disease where people would not feel shy to go for treatment for fear of being stigmatized.
She asked all Ghanaians to see TB as a public health and social issue and to work to address stigmatization so that people could freely come out when they have TB.
The Executive Director of HFFG indicated that her organization had been identifying people with TB, and linking them to health facilities since the disease was preventable.
She emphasized that HFFG had been advocating a complete cure for TB and to reduce the stigma to enable people to access treatment and provide support to them.
Families, she said, should also provide support to their relatives to complete their treatment, so that they would not develop TB drug
resistance.
Mrs Lodonu-Senoo advised families not to separate the feeding bowls of people with TB because it would not help the national course to stop stigmatisation.
She added that anyone could be infected with it, but people were more susceptible to it if they were already in poor health or had a poor immune system.
The TB focal person for Akwapin North District, Mrs Rachel Addo, who represented the District Director of Health, Dr Joseph Larbi Opare, indicated that in 2007 65 new cases of TB in the district were found,which reduced to 41 in 2008 but shot up to 55 in 2009.
Mrs Addo asked people, who cough for more than two weeks, to seek early medical checkup for treatment.
The stakeholders at the forum including assembly women and representatives from the Ghana Health Service pledged to monitor volunteers within their communities to ensure the progress of the Anti-TB Stigmatization project.