The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Wellness are working to improve the performance of tuberculosis programmes in Saint. Lucia.

PAHO representatives visited the island recently to conduct monitoring and assessments. The review of the TB work plan provided an opportunity to assess the implementation of interventions to fight TB and also to determine the progress made towards reaching the programme's target.

Acting Senior Medical Officer in the Infectious Diseases Unit, Dr. Gail Gajadhar, said such an initiative is important as it will allow for improving the strategy adopted to fight and control TB.

“In terms of the work plan, what I did was go through activities that was completed; go through activities that still required completion,” she said. “We are in the process of looking for an advocate for TB; that is something we hoped to accomplish by the end of last year but we still have not. Going forward, there are more activities to be placed on the work plan.”

Dr. Gajadhar also spoke on the need to advocate for TB prevention, care and control.

“Going forward, what we want to do is have persons remember that TB is still out there and the goal is to eliminate TB. We want to eliminate TB by 2035. We are a low incidence country and we want to work towards elimination, so we want to put TB on everyone’s forefront; we want persons to realize that TB is still out there. We might not have many cases, but TB is still out there; we want to capture all the TB cases if possible that we have and not miss any cases that might be out there, whether they be adult or pediatric cases.”

The development of the TB work plan was made possible through the support of PAHO in conjunction with the Global Fund’s multi-country strategic grant.