Luanda – Angola registered, in 2023 about 6,268 cases of tuberculosis that caused 503 deaths, 507 fewer than in the previous year (1,010), the minister of Health, Sílvia Lutucuta, reported today in Luanda.
According to the minister, who was speaking to the press at the end of the second 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 that number 80 thousand patients were diagnosed in health units.
“In 2023, the Health sector began to register an increase in the success treatment rate, resulting from increased testing by the Community Agents - DOT and coordinated actions between the various sectors”, she 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%), at national, provincial and municipal levels.
Sílvia Lutucuta said that, in the aforementioned period, 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.
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