TB in China
Importance of Culture
The importance of culture to health is enormous. The two concepts are linked together. Culture influences the health of individuals. In low and middle-income communities in China, most of the health decisions are made based on their culture. China is known for its well-defined system of indigenous medicine. The culture of using the indigenous medicine system negatively impacts on TB treatment since individuals seek traditional medicine first, which may not be effective in curing TB. Traditional medicine systems lead to a poor diagnosis of TB that leads to poor treatment outcomes.
Health Believes and Practices
Different societies have different believes and practices concern health issues. In China, people would first visit an herbalist or an acupuncturist when they fall sick. If the treatments from the traditional health practitioners seem not to work, they visit a hospital practicing western medicine. In some cases, they take both herbal and western medicine for TB. In this case, the combination may lead to resistance to TB drugs, which increases the burden and cost of treating TB in China.
Recommendations
For many years, China has adopted several measures to eliminate TB including implementing the 10-year infectious and endemic disease control project in 1991. Although the project was successful, it only reduced TB cases by 37%. Thus, it can be recommended that the use of DOTS (directly observed therapy, short course) should be scaled up across all provinces reporting TB cases. Again, policies aiming to strengthen the health system need to be formulated and implemented. The system should ensure that suspected TB cases are accurately diagnosed and patients complete the treatment as required. Educating citizens through civic education will also go a long way in ensuring patients complete treatment.
Health Behavior and Behavior Change
Most traditional people in China believe that TB can be cured using traditional medicine. They thus visit the herbalists when they feel unwell and resort to visit the hospital when the condition worsens. While they are visiting herbalists, they continue spreading TB to those close to them and even the traditional practitioners. This hastens the spread of TB and increases the number of cases and associated deaths. To change this behavior, people should be educated on the importance of seeking treatment from the hospital as soon as they realize they are unwell. The knowledge of the effectiveness of hospital treatment will encourage more patients to visit the hospital as soon as they show the symptoms.
Public Health activities
Although China has been successful in part to meet the old global targets of reducing TB prevalence and deaths, it still faces problems in completely eradicating it. The health system is shifting the treatment of TB from the Chinese CDC to designated hospitals. The initiative will increase the number of patients being treated but poses a major question of the quality of treatment due to a lack of adequate personnel.