Africa-Press – Angola. Angola recorded, in 2023, sixty-eight thousand and 268 cases of tuberculosis that caused 503 deaths, 507 fewer than in the previous year, the Minister of Health, Sílvia Lutucuta, reported this Monday in Luanda.
According to the minister, who was speaking to the press at the end of the 2nd ordinary session of the National Commission for the Fight against HIV/AIDS and Major Endemic Diseases (CNLS-GE), guided by the vice-president of the Republic, Esperança da Costa, from this issue 80 thousand patients were diagnosed in health units.
“In 2023, the Health sector began to register an increase in the treatment success rate, resulting from increased testing by the Community DOT and coordinated actions between the various sectors”, he highlighted.
(The DOT serves to ensure that the patient receives and takes all medications as prescribed and to monitor their response to treatment).
Data from the National Tuberculosis Control Program (PNCT) points, between 2018 and 2022, to the expansion of the service network from 13 (6.3%) to 36 hospitals (17.3%), including national, provincial and municipal.
Sílvia Lutucuta said that, in the period in question, the number of provinces with the capacity to diagnose cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis rose from 14 to 18, as well as municipalities with care services from 111 to 155, corresponding to a coverage of 95 % all over the country.
Fighting Malaria
On the occasion, the Minister of Health said that Angola also reduced, between 2022 and 2023, the number of deaths from malaria, from 12 thousand to nine thousand deaths, despite the increase in cases of the disease.
He said that this result is due to increased access to healthcare, early diagnosis and timely treatment.
He added that, in relation to the challenges, in terms of vector control, it is proposed to reinforce actions at local level, in the continuation of the mobilization of financial resources and continuous training of staff.
Sleeping sickness
Regarding the fight against sleeping sickness, the person responsible highlighted the various gains recorded, with emphasis on the reinforcement of the anti-vector fight integrated with the issue of mobility in municipalities endemic to the disease, the increase in active screening expeditions to remote areas and the introduction of molecular diagnosis at the Institute for Combating and Controlling Trypanosomiasis.
Still in relation to tryponosomiasis, the Ministries of Health and Agriculture and Forestry are strengthening partnerships, together with provincial governments and municipal administrations, to control the fly and reservoirs, aiming to reach an incidence of 1/10,000 inhabitants during five years.
Currently, Angola has an incidence of 5/10,000 inhabitants.
Trypanosomiasis, the scientific name for sleeping sickness, is a disease in rural areas. The natural habitat is forest galleries and dense forests, where temperatures range between 19 and 25 degrees.
HIV/AIDS
In the case of HIV/AIDS, Sílvia Lutucuta said that 310 thousand patients are under control of the health authorities, of which 190 thousand are female, with a prevalence rate of two percent, and 35 thousand children between the ages of zero and 14.
The data points to a universe of 15,000 new infections and 13,000 AIDS-related deaths, without precise time periods.
To cope with the numbers, according to the minister, health units increased their testing capacity to 116 percent in 2022, compared to 2017, and the services of the Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission Prevention Program, from 650, in 2017 to 881 in 2022, as well as expanding access to viral load and early childhood diagnosis to the 18 provinces.
He said he informed the members of the commission about the objectives, goals, strategic axes, budget, main activities, challenges and priorities of the VII National Strategic Plan for the Response to HIV/AIDS, a document that proposes the reduction of new HIV infections and related mortality AIDS, mitigate the social determinants that worsen the epidemic and eliminate stigma and discrimination related to the disease.
The plan establishes that special attention must be given to vulnerable populations, through coordinated multisectoral actions and community participation, emphasizing the importance of working hard to implement the Strategic Plan for the Elimination of HIV/AIDS in children by 2030.
The VII National Strategic Plan for the Response to HIV/AIDS aims to reduce new HIV infections and AIDS-related mortality, mitigate social determinants that worsen the epidemic and eliminate stigma and discrimination related to the disease.
The CNLS-GE, coordinated by the vice-president of the Republic, Esperança da Costa, has the responsibilities, among others, of coordinating and guiding the entire fighting policy, promoting the involvement of different Government partners, mobilizing the necessary resources and developing actions capable of to improve knowledge about HIV/AIDS and the Major Endemic Diseases that plague the country.
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