The United States Government has approved over $US700,000 to target one of three tuberculosis "hot spots" in the U.S.-affiliated areas of the Pacific.
A mass screening of the population of 12,000 on Ebeye Island to detect and treat tuberculosis (TB) is anticipated later this year as a first step in a new effort to reduce the high rate of TB in the Marshall Islands.
From the left CDC officials Richard Brostrom and Andy Andrew with Marshalls' Health Minister Kalani Kaneko Photo: Hilary Hosia
Marshalls health officials and representatives of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control see this major screening effort as a way to dramatically reduce the problem on Ebeye.
Our correspondent said if the program on Ebeye is successful, they will look to a similar strategy for Majuro, where half the country's 55,000 population resides and where TB is rampant.
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control official said the three TB "hot spots" in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific are Ebeye, Majuro and Weno, the capital of Chuuk state in the Federated States of Micronesia.