Focus on tuberculosis
Maria Canton
Northern News Services
Cape Dorset (Nov 13/00) - Passports for healthy living were the ticket at a health fair that promoted awareness of tuberculosis in Cape Dorset.
Last year there were 26 active cases in the community of 1,200. The number has falled to 13 active, but Cape Dorset still has the highest rate for tuberculsosis in Nunavut.
Health care workers set up a fun, imaginative and informative "fair" that drew residents out and taught them about the infectious disease that has plagued so many Inuit over the years.
"The local health centre started the initiative and got more than 10 local agencies involved," said Susan Staider, the TB co-ordinator for Nunavut.
"We wanted to raise people's awareness about things like the importance of getting X-rays and how the procedures have improved over the years and we wanted to push compliance with taking medication and living a healthy lifestyle."
More than 500 people filed through the "Healthy Living" fair and its 12 information booths.
The local TB nurse, Sue Sellars, said the fair was the first step in bringing the number of active TB cases down.
"It created an awareness; we had a lot of interested people asking questions, watching the videos we played, looking at X-rays we brought in and picking up pamphlets," said Sellars, who started the Dorset TB program last January.
"The focus was on kids, and we gave them passports to go to venues and ask questions and get answers."
Two forms of the air borne disease -- TB infectious and TB disease -- are treated with lengthy doses of medication.
"A lot of old TB cases are being re-activated in people for one reason or another and it's important for us to inform people about prevention and the importance of taking their medication to completion," she said.
"I don't really know why Cape Dorset has the highest number of cases."
