In collaboration with the national TB programme, our team has been scaling up the capacities for screening, diagnosis, treatment initiation and follow-up in Port Moresby’s Gerehu hospital. Mobile teams work in the community to improve patient adherence to treatment.
In Gulf province, our TB programme supports two health centres as well as Kerema general hospital.
In 2020, MSF teams responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, treating patients in Port Moresby and training medical staff in 22 provinces.
In July 2021, we completed the handover of our TB project to health authorities in Kerema, which included screening, diagnosis, inpatient care, awareness-raising activities and patient follow-up. Of the almost 4,000 TB patients we diagnosed between 2014 and 2021, more than 2,000 completed their treatment and 1,000 were cured.
In the capital, Port Moresby, we expanded our activities in Six Mile district after we noticed that a significant proportion of new multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) patients were coming from this area. We implemented activities to curb the spread of the disease by screening contacts of confirmed TB patients and offering them preventive treatment. We also started to assist with the rehabilitation of government facilities and the construction of a new TB clinic and laboratory.
For MDR-TB patients, we initiated treatment with all-oral regimens that improved treatment outcomes.
While PNG did not experience major COVID-19 outbreaks until March 2021, the rapid increase in cases after that stretched the health system to the point of collapse. We supported a national treatment facility in Port Moresby, which had 43 beds for moderately to severely ill patients.
