The study was conducted by Messrs. Richard Kuunaah and Wonder Kwabolar Kponor both from the Faculty of Public Health and Allied Sciences of the Catholic University College of Ghana in Sunyani.

Welcoming stakeholders to the meeting, Mr. Kuunaah who doubles as the Executive Director of GHANECare said he decided together with his colleague to undertake the study because they realized that the District could not meet its target over the years.

“In 2011, the District was supposed to detect 104 TB cases per 100,000 but the District only detected twenty nine (29).   In 2012, the Ministry of Health reviewed the target to two hundred and thirty-six (236) per the same population. The District detected twenty five (25) cases for the year. Only 29 cases were further detected in 2013. In 2014 and 2015, the case detection was 42 and 52 respectively. This means, the District has deficits of 875 TB cases from 2011 to 2015.” He said.

He added that as at April this year the District has recorded nine (9) TB related deaths quoting from statistics collated from 2015.

Mr. Kuunaah said the research work revealed that majority of the people who are undergoing TB treatment are of ages above 35 years amounting to 54.3% of patients a situation he said should be a Public Health Concern.

He asked laboratory technologist and pharmacists to investigate further into the BCG vaccine and immunization policy because “we are of the view that the introduction of the BCG at birth might have some influence”.

“There is an urgent need for a nationwide research on factors contributing to TB Low Case Detection in Ghana. We are appealing to the government of Ghana and donor agencies to support GHANECare and the researchers to conduct a nationwide research on factors contributing to TB Low Case Detection to establish a national representation on TB case detection.” He concluded.

It came up that the lack of a technician to manage an x-ray machine and the breakdown of a Gen-Xpert machine immediately after installation at the Atebubu government hospital are two significant factors militating against high case detections in the District.

Mr. Albert Henyo a lecturer at the Catholic University College who deputized for the Vice Chancellor of the university promised to take the issue of the x-ray machine up with the health service directorate in Sunyani for a possible solution.

Present was Mr. Emmanuel Kwang a lecturer in public health at the same university who supervised the study.