By Zacharia Mlacha
A trained community health worker Sarah Samson, visiting Muheza district hospital to follow up her client’s. Sarah volunteers to collect the sputum sample from her clients for further TB investigations
Muheza, Tanga – Sarah Samson (50) is a skilled, confident Community Health Worker (CHW) committed to serving Tuberculosis (TB) patients. She is a Tuberculosis (TB) survivor working as a volunteer who serves 6 villages in her area; her roles in the community is to identify, screen, and link the TB clients for treatment in a health facility.
In 2020, when Sarah was on her routine health education and service provision visits, she met Musa Abdallah who was addicted to drug abuse.
Sarah had a long discussion with Abdallah and realized that Abdallah was weak, had severe coughing, chest pain and fever that lasted for months. She learned that Abdallah had TB signs and symptoms.
TB is one of the world’s leading infectious disease killers, preying on poor and marginalized communities. In 2020 an estimated 10 million people fell sick with the disease and 1.5 million people died. Tanzania is one of the 30 countries with a high TB burden accounting for 87% of all patients worldwide. Tanzania TB incidence was estimated to have 133,000 TB cases, of whom 85,597 patients were diagnosed and treated leading to 64% treatment coverage.
With funding from the Global fund, through Amref Health Africa Tanzania Management and Development for Health (MDH) is working to make progress to end the TB disease as an epidemic in seven regions of Tanzania.
Sarah is among 1,679 Community Health Workers (CHWs) trained by the Global fund project from seven regions of Tanzania to support TB screening and treatment in the Communities.
After she noticed Abdallah had signs and symptoms of TB, she pursued him to go for screening but he refused. She offered him a container and asked him to provide a sputum sample for the examination which was taken to nearby Muheza district hospital. After three days, she received a call from a health provider informing her that Abdallah was positive.
“I received a call from the health provider informing me about the results of Abdallah, thus on the same day I went to his place and counselled him to get the TB medication and escorted him to the hospital”
Abdallah was determined to get cured and make himself completely TB free, he was provided with TB medicines to be taken for for 6 months. He continued taking medications on daily basis for 6 months upon which he thought was free from TB. He didn’t do the second sputum examination.
In 2021, when Sarah was doing follow up for case detection and household visits for health education, again she found Abdallah sleeping at his home and had severe coughing. His health had deteriorated. Sarah collected the sputum sample for TB re-testing. Again, the result was positive.
Sarah believed that Abdallah didn’t recover because didn’t appropriately adhere to medications. She volunteered to take the pills to him and control them by visiting his place every morning to ensure Abdallah is taking medications timely. She did this for six months but he did not recover from TB.
Since he was suffering from drug-resistant TB, Abdallah was referred to Kibong’oto Infectious Diseases Hospital, based in the Northern part of Tanzania, formerly known as Kibong’oto National Tuberculosis (TB) Hospital.
At Kibong’oto Hospital, he was hospitalized for six months and received counselling on the importance of adhering to the medication to recover from TB. He stayed for two weeks and then escaped to Muheza. “I decided to escape because I felt tired of taking daily medications and being addicted to drugs, I wasn’t ready to quit from drugs,” said Abdallah
When people saw Abdallah on the streets, they informed Sarah. After she confirmed that Abdallah had run away from the hospital, she made a call to a Medical Officer in charge of Muheza Hospital who later on communicated with the management of Kibong’oto hospital to take him back to continue with his medication.
A few days later, the special Ambulance from Kibong’oto Hospital arrived in Muheza and took back Abdallah to continue with his medication. He stayed in the hospital until he recovered and was discharged.
“I have suffered a lot, it’s like a miracle and never thought I could get cured completely,” said Abdallah with a smiling face.
Today Abdallah is strong and completely cured from TB
A TB survivor Musa Abdallah listening to Community Health Worker Sarah Samson when she visited him to his place for follow and health education sessions about TB.(Photo by; Joancen Kagombora)