Western Mindanao Jails Effectively Tackle TB In the fight against TB, “leave no inmate behind”

A city jail detainee gets his dose of anti-TB drugs from a jail warden. (Photo: TYu/PBSP)

USAID support through its tuberculosis (TB) project has enabled all 21 jails in three Zamboanga provinces and three cities in Western Mindanao to correctly implement TB control activities.

TB is a disease that is up to 100 times higher among inmates than among the general population. Prison conditions like overcrowding, poor ventilation, and repeated prison transfers fan the spread of the disease, including its drug-resistant forms, and magnify the risk of TB infection among inmates.

The key steps to controlling the disease, according to Regional Jail Nurse and Senior Jail Officer (SJO) 3 Bernadette Martinez, are “conducting cough surveillance, screening for presumptive TB cases and referring them to the Rural Health Unit, treating those with TB disease using directly observed treatment, appropriate infection control and isolation, educating both inmates and personnel about the disease, and annual TB screening for jail personnel.” She adds, “Success is possible by treating infected inmates.”

Working with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Department of Health Regional Office IX, USAID’s Innovations and Multisectoral Partnerships to Achieve Control of Tuberculosis (IMPACT) Project equipped jail nurses and other staff with skills to identify inmates with TB symptoms, refer them to the nearest health center for diagnosis, and ensure that those found with TB take the appropriate medicines until they are cured. IMPACT Project’s assistance also enabled the jails to partner with local governments to ensure uninterrupted supply of anti-TB drugs, and made certain that inmates continued their treatment even when transferred to another jail, and even after being released. As a result, the jails, which hold about 3,000 inmates, detected 20 inmates with TB and enrolled them in TB treatment.

Jail personnel also ensure that a human rights and patient-centered approach is implemented. According to the Chief of the BJMP’s Health Service Dr. Arthur C. Lorenzo, “”Everyone has the right to be free from any disease. The TB control program in jails needs to be carried out together with stakeholders such as USAID, the International Committee of the Red Cross and others, to improve inmates’ access to equitable health care and reduce mortality in jails. With this, while inmates need to serve their sentences, we can free them from TB disease.”

Nurse Martinez adds, “Every inmate counts. We must leave no inmate behind in the fight against TB.”