“My life is difficult. I am always at a loss of ideas on how to deal with my predicament,” said 51-year-old Jennifer Mugonda (pictured) from Kadoma.
Mugonda, who has suffered multiple Tuberculosis reinfections, was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer.
Narrating her ordeal at a workshop on HIV and ageing organised by Pan African Positive Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (PAPWC-Zim), Mugonda said she is living a life of misery.
“I got married at a very young age as an orphan,” she said.
“I had two children and left the marriage but things were not ok until I got into my second marriage. That was when all my health challenges started.”
Mugonda said her husband hid his HIV status from her.
“I only discovered that I was positive when I became pregnant in 2009. He refused at first, but later owned up,” she said.
"I was not put on treatment and I lost my baby in 2010. That was when I was put on treatment and I began an alternate stay in hospital.”
- Understanding childhood cancers
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She said despite the treatment, her condition continued to worsen until she was tested for TB.
She tested positive.
"I was treated and as soon as I got healed, my husband became sick again," she said
As fate would have it, she contracted TB again and became terribly sick but lady luck visited her albeit for a very short time, before the dreadful disease struck again in 2020.
"A new challenge came in 2020 when I went for cervical cancer screening. They found that I have cancer-causing eggs on the mouth of my cervix,” she said.
"I finished TB treatment first and returned for a solution to my cancer challenge and by then it had spread.”
“In January, I sought a second opinion and I was told I had to have my cervix removed.”
Mugonda said she felt her world crumble. “I feel like I am already dead,” she said. “My wish is that if only I could get the procedure done and also that I can find a way to put food on the table for my children.”
For Mugonda, the journey she has travelled with TB and HIV and now cancer has been difficult.
"I have HIV, I have cancer and I need to feed the family, but I am always weak. I can't give it my all and I am struggling to fend for my children," she said.
Current estimates indicate that every year, 3,043 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and more than 50% die from the disease.
Though there are no statistics on how the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is linked to cervical cancer in Zimbabwe, an HPV vaccine has been given to girls since 2018.
According to the World Health Organisation, HPV causes cancer in the majority of HIV-positive people.
Cervical, prostate, and breast cancers account for 66% of the total cancer burden in Zimbabwe, as well as 61% of total cancer fatalities, according to ministry of Health statistics from last year.
Zimbabwe faces a critical shortage of radiotherapy and chemotherapy equipment.
Commenting on the continued incidence of TB in an individual, Zimbabwe Health Interventions (ZHI ACCE project) senior technical officer, Ngonidzashe Ganje said it was normal to have multiple TB re-infections.
"TB is a disease which can be cured,” Ganje said.
“You can be treated and cured. Unlike with other diseases where you develop some immune system, for TB this is not the case."
“It affects different parts of the body system, thus making it easy for reinfection.
“If you have TB of the lungs, tomorrow you can even get TB of the bones and so forth.”
Ganje said people at a higher risk are those with a weakened immune system especially the HIV positive.
"There is prophylaxis, medications to take so we reduce the risk of TB disease,” he said.
“We now have different regimens of those medications one can take to reduce the risk. We call it TB preventive therapy."
Ganje said Zimbabwe had approved the use of a drug called isoniazid which is taken daily for six months.
“It will reduce the risk for up to three years. Apart from isoniazid, we have a newer medication, which we call 3HP, that's three months of a weekly dose of isoniazid as well, with another drug,” Ganje said.
“If you take that for twelve weeks, you are protected for three years.
“If you are living with HIV every three years you must take medication to make sure that you reduce your risk of TB disease.”
Ganje said their organisation has been supporting the ministry to ensure that people living with HIV have access to these TB preventive medicines.
About 30% of people living with HIV die of TB related diseases.
Last week, the country joined the rest of the world to commemorate World TB Day.
The theme for the year is: 'Yes! We can end TB.
Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai Rusike said TB remained a major obstacle to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on health.
Zimbabwe has an estimated 21,000 new cases of TB each year, and 3.1% of these are drug resistant.
About 6,300 Zimbabweans die of TB each year despite the disease being preventable and curable.
The World Health Organisation has a 90/90/90 target towards ending TB by 2030.
The target serves as a blueprint for countries to reduce TB incidence by 90%, TB deaths by 90%, and to eliminate catastrophic costs for TB-affected households by 2030.
