EPHI hosts the 8th National TB Research Annual Conference
The Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute, EHNRI in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Health, Tuberculosis Research Advisory Committee, TRAC and the Addis Ababa City Administration Health Bureau has hosts the 8th National TB Research Annual Conference that also commemorates the world TB day, 21 March, 2013.
According to the annual conference’s coordinators, the conference is aimed at raising awareness about TB and creating coordinated responses to eradicating Tuberculosis.
On his welcoming speech, Dr. Amha Kebede, Director General of EHNRI said that on top of conducting multiple interventions to stop TB, the nation’s health sector has conducted the Ethiopian National TB Prevalence survey of 2010/11 that helped the sector to make evidence based approach, which is essential for planning and decision making.
“As a result of this, over the last couple of years we have moved our response from an emergency-type set of interventions, to strategic, robust and evidence-based programs’’ added Amha, PhD
On his remark, Dr. Kesetebrhan Admasu, Minister of Health said that Tuberculosis and all its implications have been recognized as major public health problems for more than five decades and for that we have adopted and developed programs and strategies to prevent and control it.
‘’In addition to all this efforts to stop TB, the Government is committed to do everything possible to ensure that we win this fight’’ said Dr. Kesetebrahn
The workshop was accompanied also with massive public awareness creation activities and media campaigns to reach the community at large so that to make clear misunderstandings related to TB and supporting the national goal to make the Ethiopian citizens to be responsible for their own health.
The workshop attracted all concerned stakeholders ranging from health professionals, researchers, program managers, community development agencies, health workers, students, partners and government representatives representing Regional health bureaus, zonal health departments, district health offices, universities, health colleges and health facilities almost from all over the nation.
Tuberculosis is a disease that is preventable, treatable, and curable but still kills 1.5 million people globally every year. Tuberculosis is a serious infectious disease and, despite the availability of effective treatment, it remains a major global health problem. TB is also the biggest killer of people living with HIV, accounting for one in four AIDS related deaths.
In its pulmonary form TB is easily spread when an infected person simply laughs, coughs, sneezes or even talks. Two billion people globally—one in three people—carry the TB bacilli but only one in ten of these people will develop active TB in their lifetime.