It’s still one of the most prevalent diseases around the world, as tuberculosis still infects millions of people worldwide. Over the weekend at the Hyatt Regency Guam, the "Let’s Unite to End TB in Guam" conference addressed the concerns still brewing over the disease.

"The conference is basically to focus our island healthcare professionals to continue to think about TB after COVID-19," TB Program Manager Chima Mbakwem said. "With the statistics and data that was presented today, it’s obvious we’ve seen a decline in TB cases around the world, generally. But there is a question about is it a true decline due to interventions that are going on or is it a decline due to the effects of covid and also, is it a decline based on the fact that we are underdiagnosing TB and underreporting TB."

Mbakwem was also one of the speakers at the conference, sharing his knowledge on what he knows about the disease.

"I spoke on two topics: the first one was I gave an overview about TB in the U.S., in the Pacific Islands and in Guam," he said. "We did a comparison to show what the cases are and also look at the cost of treating TB and also, the cost-saving measures that the public health department has placed to treat TB. The second one is leveraging our partnership and involving stakeholders in our aim to drive TB down in Guam."

Another guest speaker present at the conference was TB nurse consultant Nadya Sabuwala, who shed light on what she spoke at the event.

"Leveraging partnerships and stakeholder involvement. Tb anywhere is TB everywhere so it’s important that we work together to eliminate TB," she said.

Sabuwala is also part of the National TB Controllers Association, where the goal is to support all the different TB programs in the states to move toward eliminating the disease.

"The second talk is about multi-drug resistant TB, the new and emerging treatments, the old treatments for multi resistant drug TB was sometimes 18 months, sometimes 24, sometimes 36," she said. "There is a newer regiment, which is only 6 months and so, I’m going to be talking about the nursing implications when we use that treatment for our TB patients."

The conference also had experts on diagnosis, latent TB treatment and new cutting-edge science in place for treatment and diagnosis.