PUBLIC DEMANDS FOR MOBILE T.B SCREENING.

Submitted by kyeswa johnson m (johni) about 6 months ago

On 12th August 2009, Uganda joined the rest of the world to celebrate the international youth day at Luwero Bombo play grounds. The General Assembly on 17th December 1999 in its resolution 54/120, endorsed the recommendation made by the world Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) that 12th August be declared International Youth Day. The Assembly recommended that public information activities be organized to support the day as away to promote better awareness of the world programme Action for Youth to the year 2000 and Beyond, adopted by the General Assembly in 1995 (resolution 50/81). The functions were absolutely superb with a series of activities including Voluntary Counseling and Testing that I coordinated on behalf of my two organizations that is TUSAPA and Aids Information Center. Other pre-activities included; community work, public debates, tree planting and so on. His Excellency the President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni presided over the ceremony as the chief guest with a number of ministers and different Ambassadors of different countries. On the side of development partners, there was UNFPA,PLAN,AMREF and the Ugandan Government. The president discussed a number of issues including; HIV/AIDS as a serious threat to Youths, Unemployment as another obstacle, Education and Democracy in the country. Youth were very much concerned about the high rate of unemployment among themselves and called political support to avert this vice and the president promised for more support to youth initiatives. HIV Counseling and Testing: AIC-TUSAPA & AMREF conducted the exercise and both parties managed to test 520 people and those who were found to be Negative were 483 and 37 individuals were Positive. The number of those tested would even double but people were restricted from moving because of security reasons. The Presidential Guard Brigade (PGB) were the first individuals to be tested and over 90% of them filled the tent the moment they arrived the venue after escorting the president. We were surprised to see that the uniformed personnels are so faithful to their wives according to the information we got from them, this was quite interesting to we service providers. T.B At least 30 people among those tested for HIV were demanding for T.B screening. They complained of inadequate T.B services with in the government health centers that are near them. Free HIV testing was an opportunity for them since their health centers lacked such important services. They urged us (service providers) to ensure that T.B screening can also always be extended to them whenever we go for community outreach since many people have no access to T.B facilities. These people demanded for mobile T.B screening so that T.B can be screened at the same time with HIV. HDN For the purposes of publicity, there is a need to produce manuals or leaflets on HDN work so that the public can read what we do as KC’s and many interested individuals with critical issues within their communities can always have a forum to express them. I had organized a table in the exhibition specifically for HDN work BUT unfortunately nothing was to display.

Keywords: TB

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