The Minister of Health, Dr. Lia Tadese, said that Ethiopia is working on the international drug-resistant TB prevention action plan. The Honorable Minister said this at the East Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Annual TB Testing Laboratory Strengthening Forum. The Minister stated that the work done in the field of TB prevention in our country is showing an encouraging change and also mentioned that it is a good opportunity for Ethiopia to be out of the list of 33 countries where drug-resistant TB is prevalent in the world.
ECSA Director General Prof. Yoswa Dembsya said that African problems should be solved by Africans. He thanked the stakeholders who have been helping the Global Fund's TB Laboratory Testing Strengthening Project for the past seven years and pointed out that their support is needed to strengthen this work in the future.
Among the major factors identified as a challenge in the prevention and control of TB are the mismatch between the number of molecular testing (geneXpert), testing material and the country's needs, delay in testing, lack of testing capacity, and other related issues.
The forum was attended by laboratory experts, researchers, representatives from 19 countries, from the World Health Organization, USAID, CDC and various partners, and it was stated that it will last for two days.