The Ccbinet Wednesday authorized $1.9 million in emergency funding to beef up the Ministry of Health’s TB prevention program, and approved regulations banning known patients with regular TB and MDR-TB and their contacts to travel outside the Marshall Islands unless they have authorization from the director of public health.
Although only six cases of MDR-TB have been confirmed to date, the development of this difficult-to-treat disease presents the country with more than domestic health implications, since islanders enjoy visa-free travel to the United States, which presents the possibility of MDR-TB spread to communities there.
Majuro Hospital Administrator Dr. Marie Lanwi-Paul said Thursday the ministry is taking urgent measures to step-up screening for and treatment of TB in the two urban centers of Majuro and Ebeye, as well as the remote outer islands. A major issue is the large number of people who have had contact with MDR-TB patients who need to be identified and treated with preventive drugs for about nine months.
Ebeye health officials have identified up to 200 possible contacts of the four patients diagnosed with MDR-TB, and are screening them for TB.
MDR-TB cases are increasing regionally, said an official at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in Noumea. Besides the Marshall Islands, MDR-TB cases have been reported in the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Kiribati, Samoa and Papua New Guinea, said Janet O’Connor of the SPC’s TB division. “PNG reports the highest number of MDR-TB cases but new cases are being reported in the FSM and Marshall Islands over the last two years,” she said.
A team of 11 investigators from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization were in Majuro and Ebeye last month in response to government requests for help. Lanwi-Paul said the CDC is sending a team back to the Marshalls later this month to review progress and provide further assistance.
