Started in 2001, the Nairobi Slums TB Project has 600,000 direct beneficiaries across ten MOH Health Clinics in the slums of Nairobi, where there is a catchment of one million people. When Malteser International started the project there were only two places to be tested for TB in Nairobi - Kenyatta Hospital and Kemri.
With both of these being in the centre of Nairobi and the test for TB being a sputum sample taken on 3 consecutive mornings, it was inaccessible to most TB sufferers, as they could not afford the transport or the time off work. Therefore it appeared from the records that TB had almost disappeared from Kenya. It also took up to one month for the results to be given.
The reality was that TB was extremely prevalent, mostly in the urban slums where the conditions were perfect for the disease; airless, damp and congested living spaces. Having identified 10 MOH Health Clinics spread across all areas of Nairobi, Malteser International equipped each one with a laboratory and testing centre for TB. Diagnosis is now immediate and the treatment begins within 24 hours. The treatment for TB is a course of drugs that must be taken every day for six months.
Rather like antibiotics for a minor infection - you start to feel better so don't complete the course and the infection comes back - with the TB treatment if you stop taking the course of drugs you will then need take a further course for 2 years which is extremely expensive. To tackle this problem Malteser International have a team of 60 Community Health Workers.
These are 'volunteers' who all live in the slum communities in which they work. They are not paid, but are given small incentives such as lunch and transport money. When the TB patients are too ill to get out of bed and attend the clinics the CHWs care for them at home. The project has been extremely successful and the government has awarded it on two separate occasions.
They have also adopted the Malteser International model for CHWs and are using it for their own clinics and projects. Malteser International has exceeded the Millennium Development Goal 6, set by WHO to combat TB. As TB is what is known as an 'opportunistic disease' (meaning it attacks those whose immune systems and defenses are we
