TB Program For Marshall Islands
The Micronesian republic has the highest rate of tuberculosis in the Pacific, among the highest in the world.
Marianas Variety reports that a mass tuberculosis screening program “that could have global ramifications for TB control” was launched recently in the Marshall Islands.
According to reporter Giff Johnson, who lives on Majuro, “The beginning of the first phase made good progress, with an estimated 2,000 of Ebeye’s 10,000 population seen by Ministry of Health staff, said Minister Kalani Kaneko.”
Johnson continues:
The screening program for Ebeye Island is the first big initiative for lowering the high rate of tuberculosis in the Marshall Islands. In 2014, Marshall Islands reported a TB prevalence rate of 466 per 100,000 population, the highest in the Pacific and one of the highest in the world. Ebeye and Majuro, the two urban centers in the Marshall Islands, have been identified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control as two of three “TB hotspots” in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific island region. The other is Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia.
The first phase of the TB campaign involves fingerprinting pre-registration of all residents, weight check ups and nutrition counseling for mothers with babies or children “identified as malnourished.”
The second phase, supported by the World Health Organization and CDC, starts in February with the actual TB screening and treatment.
As Civil Beat has reported, health care is a primary reason citizens of Compact of Free Association nations migrate to the U.S. and its territories.
