Canada’s chief public health officer tours TB screening clinic
Dr. Theresa Tam makes stops in Naujaat, Pond Inlet and Iqaluit
Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam speaks about her tour of Nunavut and attempts to eliminate tuberculosis in the territory with the help of community screening. (Photo by Corey Larocque)
Updated April 23 at 11:15 a.m.
Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam visited Nunavut last week to see how her agency can help to address tuberculosis in the territory.
“We’re there as a support for the efforts that are happening on the ground,” she said in an interview April 19.
Tam visited Naujaat, Pond Inlet and Iqaluit during her stay. She was accompanied by representatives from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., and the Government of Nunavut, including NTI vice-president Paul Irngaut, Health Minister John Main and Nunavut’s deputy chief public health officer Dr. Ekua Agyemang.
Tam also observed Naujaat’s community-wide screening clinic, which launched April 15 and is scheduled to continue through May.
The Department of Health has declared TB outbreaks in Naujaat, Pangnirtung and Pond Inlet, which are ongoing in all three communities.
Tam said it is her department’s role to provide laboratory and technical support for screening clinics, including providing a mobile laboratory in the clinic for people to get diagnosed on site.
Community-wide screenings can be helpful to track the spread of tuberculosis because contact-tracing becomes complex when people travel out of community or are non-symptomatic, Tam said.
She used the example of Pangnirtung, where a community-wide TB screening clinic was held last fall.
Health officials uncovered 55 cases of sleeping, or latent, tuberculosis over the course of the 10-week clinic. People who have a sleeping form of TB do not show symptoms and are not infectious. The disease, however, can become active if it’s not treated.
One message Tam said her team is trying to get out in the communities is that people should not be afraid of tuberculosis anymore.
“Language and cultural safety is one of the key elements of success in tuberculosis elimination,” she said, adding it’s important to make sure there are Inuit health representatives who are based in the community.
Those representatives are the bridge between a Nunavut community and public health teams because they are trusted and speak Inuktitut.
Tam acknowledged that historically there has been fear and stigmatization associated with tuberculosis.
“We should not fear tuberculosis,” she said.
“It is a curable, treatable disease.”
She said communities rightly still distrust the government after Nunavummiut were forcibly removed from their communities through the 1940s to 1960s if they had tuberculosis.
This history and stigma around tuberculosis is another reason for the importance of community-based TB screenings, according to Tam.
“We’re trying to reverse that wrong by bringing testing and treatment to the community,” she said.
Note: This article has been corrected to note Dr. Ekua Agyemang is deputy chief public health officer for Nunavut.
Is this the same,Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam who probably conned her way through the supposedly covid 19 outbreak in canada? Why all of a sudden shes interested in helping to curb the outbreak of T.B in the North? Oh yeah, I forgot, shes trudeaus puppet and its getting closer to election time. She’s a con artist employed by the federal government agency.
All you need to know about this nasty baseless comment is its reference to the “supposedly covid 19 outbreak”. So you figure all those people who died had really bad hangnails?
It’s funny how the hand sanitizer is right in front of her…. it’s all for photoshoot HAHAHAHA
Where was Nunacut’s Chief Public Health Officer?
Conspicuous by his absence in this article and the photo ops last week.
I keep asking this question and never see an answer. Why aren’t people getting the BCG vaccine developed in the 1920s? That’s now a hundred years ago. For more, here’s the link on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCG_vaccine
They are. Did you check the NU vaccine schedule? It’s one of the first ones given to newborns. https://www.gov.nu.ca/sites/default/files/documents/2021-10/nunavut_childhood_immunization_schedule_july_2021.pdf
It always amazes me that some people attack and create unfounded completely illogical theories when the greatest contribution they make is to wake,up smoke weed, make a new foil hat for the day and emerse themselves into new mindless wondering. It does give the rest of us something to laugh at. Keep it coming, nut bars of the world unite. Knowledge can be overcome.
It doesn’t amaze me at all, some are born to attack everything that is said and good.
Welcome to Nunavut Dr. Tam, you are a hero.
But where is our CPHO?
Excellent question. We were so fortunate to have Dr. Patterson as CPHO during the pandemic.
All i know is that t.b. only seems to be a problem in the north. The rest of north america seems to have it under control, obviously something is seriously wrong and a new stratergy should be implamented in order to iradicare this nasty desease