Tuberculosis is one of the worlds? deadliest infectious diseases, and is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality especially in poor countries. In Zambia, Tuberculosis remains a major health problem and is among the top ten causes of morbidity and mortality. Tuberculosis notifications have increased 5- fold in the last 20 years, mainly due to HIV/AIDS, it is estimated that approximately 70 % of all detected tuberculosis cases are also co-infected with HIV. The interaction of tuberculosis with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection has complicated and made difficult the Tuberculosis control program. Tuberculosis has become the leading cause of death among people living with HIV/AIDS. The management of tuberculosis in Zambia is faced with many challenges, such as lack of compliance to treatment by patients, poverty as well as lack of adequate finance for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care. The main aim of my thesis was monitoring the problem of tuberculosis in Zambia, other accompanying aims were to find out how well informed the Zambian population is, about tuberculosis, monitor the diagnostic procedure for tuberculosis, analyse the tuberculosis treatment regime and lastly to analyse the preventive measures that have been implemented and how effective they have been. In this thesis, both qualitative and quantitative types of research were used. With the qualitative research, secondary analysis of data was used. Data from different sources of information like books, publications and research findings of various surveys and researches that were done not only by the Zambian Ministry of Health but also by other organizations was used. With the quantitative research, a questionnaire was formulated whose main aim was to find out about how well informed the Zambian people are about tuberculosis. This was done only in the capital city of Zambia which is Lusaka, and the number of respondents was 100. From the results obtained, the tuberculosis burden in Zambia still remains high and tuberculosis continues to be a serious public health problem. The implementation of the various preventive measures, though still facing difficulties, has however yielded positive results. There have been improvements in the treatment success rates from 77 % in the year 2000 to the current 86 %, the incidence rate per 100 000 population has also reduced from 504 in the year 2000 to the current 365 per 100 000 population. This reduction in incidence rates can be attributed to the preventive measures like the expansion of directly observed therapy treatment ? shortcourse (DOTS)strategy to all the districts in the country, the strengthening of the National Tuberculosis Control program and many others. This work can be used as a source of reference for future research in relation to the topic of tuberculosis in Zambia.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:156430 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | LUBASI, Sundano Kutoma |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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