Kids exposed to adults 

with TB can get IPT 

CORTES, Bohol, Aug 22 (PIA)—Parents of kids who may have unknowingly lived with persons suffering from tuberculosis (TB) infection can now rest assured that their kids can have a treatment. 

According to the coordinator of the Bohol TB Program, the Isoniazid Preventive Therapy (IPT) has been launched here as a TB preventive treatment part of the national anti-TB program. 

Nurse Polizena Rances, Bohol TB program coordinator said kids who may have been exposed to adults with TB can now get the treatment. 

Speaking during the Kapihan sa PIA commemorating the Lung Month as well as the danger of lung diseases to COVID infection, Rances reported that many of the COVID suspects examined at the Gov. Celestino Gallares Hospital were found to have pre conditioned lung infections. 

This, Rances pointed out, could be an indication of the effects of undetected cases of TB in communities. 

Apart from possibly infecting more and more people they can come in contact with in public transports, in closed air-conditioned rooms, undetected TB cases can also unwittingly expose kids they are living with, with the bacteria which can remain dormant until late in life. 

Moreover, Rances explained why people believed TB is hereditary. 

She said because TB is among the highly contagious bacterial diseases, people living in the same household would tend to get it, not because it is in their blood, but because they have been passed on the bacteria from droplets when the infected person in the house coughs or sneezes. 

Sometimes, when the body is still strong, its antibodies can keep the bacteria dormant and asleep, this will wake up as soon as the body’s immune system gets compromised, by age, or any other factors. 

She added that TB bacteria may not be only on the thin and sickly, but it can also be in the apparently fat and healthy. 

The good news about TB however is that the government, along with the global health alliance has made the disease curable. 

Over the years, as TB cure stretched, the government has found a Directly Observed Treatment Short course (TB DOTS), a cost-effective standardized treatment strategy that uses short-course regimens, and fixed-dose drug combinations (FDCs) to facilitate adherence to treatment and to reduce the risk of the development of drug resistance. 

Addressing the problem of patients interrupting and stopping treatment, the solution of supervised treatment by direct observation by a family member, co worker or anybody close to the patient enough to oversee and make sure the combination of drugs for treatment is religiously taken. 

A short course treatment can run to six months and can not be interrupted or stopped as this can develop drug-resistant TB, which is harder to treat, uses more expensive drug combinations and can last to a treatment regimen spanning one year to one year and six months, according to Rances. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

PROTECTING THE KIDS. Kids who may be exposed to adults with BT can now get preventive treatment as the governmet launched the IPT program, says nurse Polizena Rances, anti-TB Program coordinator of the Provincial Health Office in Bohol. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)