It’s all about TB… TB… TB.
These three words may not be found on any National Tuberculosis Program Guidelines, but it constitutes the most important part of the program itself, AWARENESS. A wise person once said, “prevention is better than cure.” To prevent this disease from contracting an individual and infecting another individual is likely thrice as important as treating it using fixed-combination drugs which might damage your liver, since those drugs you will be taking is very dangerous to your liver, along other annoying side effects. It is very annoying in a way that is changes the colour of your urine, others would affect their gait and balance and etc. A well-known individual from the DOH (although I forgot her name) said that whoever is not exposed to TB is not a Filipino. TB is a single dangerous disease that is endemic in our country.
TB awareness week health education is conducted throughout all age groups, from high-risk groups to normal individuals. This constitutes imparting basic knowledge about TB, its etiology, mode of transmission, and signs and symptoms that a person might be experiencing for him to highly suspect it is TB. A pregnant woman, although not included in the high-risk group, and is somehow has limited chances of getting the disease, but its fatality to the pregrant mother and the child inside the womb is greatly increased when the mother has TB. We conducted a health education campaign to pregnant mothers and lactating mothers in Barangay Venus, targeting those mothers who come for pre-natal check-ups, and those whose child is scheduled for immunization.
Few days after, we held our third health education campaign to school children in Venus Elementary School, and by the way, children have a high tendency of getting TB from adults, since their immune system is lower than those adults. We taught them proper coughing etiquettes, proper hand washing, infection isolation when one is sick, and basic knowledge about TB so that they may know little important things about this disease. We also had our question and answer games, pre-test and post-test to check if they understood the discussion.
Written by: Rashid-Ali B. Hamis
