27 year old Francis Singili, a father of two and is a pump attendant at Majengo Mapya area, Jomvu, Mombasa County.
In August last year, 2022, he started coughing profusely, accompanied by chest pains and night sweats. For one week, he ignored the symptoms thinking he had contracted a flu that would heal without any treatment like it had happened to him before.
‘When the symptoms persisted for one week, I first went to the nearest local chemist and bought over the counter medicine. After two weeks of being on this medication, the symptoms had not yet alleviated. This prompted me to seek further medical attention at a nearby private facility,” Francis shares.
Francis adds, “At the private facility I was diagnosed with pneumonia and put on treatment right away. I took the pneumonia medicines for one month, where in the first two weeks of being on treatment, I felt better but began deteriorating again.”
Francis went back to the private facility for a recheck up and was requested to continue with the pneumonia with the assurance that he would get better with time
“The more I continued taking the pneumonia medication, the more sick I became. It got to a point even working became a struggle. Most of the time while at work, I had a hard time serving customers because of the constant coughing and general body fatigue. My chest felt compressed because of the pain. I pushed myself to work as I was the only family breadwinner, “ Francis nostalgically recalls.
At home his wife seeing his condition get worse, she urged him to seek treatment in the nearest public health facility, Jomvu Model Health Centre.
“ When we presented at the facility with my wife, the healthcare workers received us well. Though the queue at triage point and the consultation room were long, I was prioritised to get see as a result of the frequent coughing, to avoid spreading what I was ailing from to other clients in the queue,” Francis recalls.
Upon explaining to the clinicians the signs and symptoms he was experiencing, Francis was requested to go for a chest X-ray at facility with the help of a linkage assistant.
“Inside the X-ray room, the radiographer took an image of my chest. He referred me back to the clinician who explained to us, my lungs had cavities suggestive of TB but he would only ascertain this through a sputum test at the laboratory. The clinician referred me to the laboratory for a TB test, ,” Francis shares.
At the laboratory, Francis was given a sputum mug and explained how to produce a suitable sputum for testing. One hour after providing the sputum, the results were out.
“The results indicated I had tested positive for TB. I was shocked and confused because I did not know how I was going to handle the matter. It was abrupt and I could not fathom how I had contracted TB. I thought I was going to die. The clinician however counselled and consoled me that I would get cured if I started and completed TB treatment. He reassured me that we would walk the journey to recovery together by among others enrolling me to a digital platform to assist in adhering to treatment,” Francis shares.
The enrolment to the digital adherence platform involved inputting Francis biodata into the adherence platform, which was installed on his phone, and demonstrating to him how to pick the drugs from the fixed-dose combination medication sleeve. Just like other patients enrolled into the platform in Mombasa and Nairobi Counties, Francis reported his medication intake daily by sending a toll-free SMS message using a code found on the customised packaging.
His household contacts, the wife and children were also tested for TB the following day. None of them tested positive for active TB disease. They were put on TB preventive therapy to prevent them from developing active TB. They have all since completed treatment and are progressing on well.
“ I am grateful to everyone who has supported us in this journey. Were it the availability of healthcare workers and the equipment’s at Jomvu Model Health Centre that diagnosed what I was ailing from, myself and family would be long gone now, as I have come to know TB kills if left untreated and a person with the active disease like I had spreads to close contacts through among others coughing,’’ Francis shares.
He adds, “We are alive because of the access to the free testing, treatment and treatment monitoring services received here. I recommend similar services to every health facility so as to end this disease.”
Francis is among thousands of TB patients who are beneficiaries of the Introducing New TB Tools Project (INTP) in Kenya.
In June 2022, with support from USAID and Stop TB Partnership – Kenya, the Ministry of Health National TB Program in collaboration with its partners including Centre for Health Solutions – Kenya USAID TB ARC II activity began implementing INTP to strengthen TB care in the country.
This included the roll out of the following WHO-approved tools for TB screening, diagnosis, and prevention;
- Eight digital chest X-ray equipment kits with accompanying software for the computer-aided detection of TB
- 38 portable and battery-powered Truenat machines for molecular TB testing that can be easily used in hard-to reach areas where reliable electricity supply is not reliable
- Digital Adherence Technology using medication sleeve
- Two interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) machines to aid in the detection of TB infection
- Treatment courses for TB preventative therapy: the 3RH regimen to benefit 13,000 persons
- Connectivity solution for all TB diagnostic equipment known as TIBULIMS.
