News from the seminar: TB and the Somali community

14 February 2011

I attended TB Alert’s TB awareness seminar in Birmingham. It was an excellent day and I learned a lot about TB in the local community and I met new friends: local TB clinician, Dr Martin Dedicoat and TB Nurse Manager, Viv Braddy. Both were interested to engage with the Somali community in Birmingham and we had our first meeting in January, where we discussed the types and steps of engagement with the local Somali community. My organisation also plans to work with the local TB services in Northampton and help them to engage with the Somali community there.

TB affects all communities regardless of ethnicity or nationality, but members of the Somali community are affected more often. So they need more awareness about TB and the TB screening programme. If you think they are 'hard to reach' I will help you, and show you the way. In the Somali community, anyone who has TB will be isolated from his or her family. They think TB is a very dangerous disease which can kill people. The family will be stigmatised and that is why they don’t tell anyone.

TB is preventable and curable. Awareness and knowledge in local services will in turn help the community. Local TB services and TB clinicians should engage with community groups, places of worship, clubs, coffee shops, places of chewing Khat, libraries and Citizen Advice Bureau. TB Alert’s programme to train people from community organisations about TB will increase awareness and put TB on their agenda. After the training, TB services and public health departments can employ community group members to build the links between services and their communities. They will then more easily raise awareness and reach out to the communities, using their language.

When communities have knowledge of TB symptoms they will be aware of early warning signs and they can go to their GP or their local services, which helps prevent the spread of TB – prevention is better than cure.

Abade M Ahmed
Northamptonshire Somali Community