{"id":24138,"date":"2016-03-25T01:50:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T01:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/unlawful-to-jail-tb-patients-for-refusing\/"},"modified":"2016-03-25T01:50:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T01:50:42","slug":"unlawful-to-jail-tb-patients-for-refusing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/unlawful-to-jail-tb-patients-for-refusing\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Unlawful&#8217; to jail TB patients for refusing medication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A court in Kenya has said jailing patients who refused to take their TB medication is unlawful.}<\/p>\n<p>Two men spent two-and-a-half months in prison in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>In the precedent-setting judgement, Judge Mumbi Ngugi said both safeguarding the public from infection and upholding the patients&#8217; rights was a tricky balancing act.<\/p>\n<p>But she added that a crowded prison was the worst place to try and isolate people with infectious disease.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Ngugi noted that it was within existing laws to isolate people with diseases which could spread easily.<\/p>\n<p>But she added that Kenya lacked a proper isolation facility at the time the two patients were imprisoned.<\/p>\n<p>She directed the Ministry of Health to issue policy guidelines within the next 90 days.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, Daniel Ng&#8217;etich and Patrick Kipngetich were sent to prison for eight months or until the satisfactory completion of their TB treatment, after originally failing to stick to their drug regime.<\/p>\n<p>They two have now recovered fully from TB.<\/p>\n<p>No damages were awarded &#8220;because it is not in the interest of the public and the decision was reached as a last resort&#8221;, the court ruled.<\/p>\n<p>The Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and Aids said in a petition that putting TB patients in prison was a widespread practice in Kenya and something they sought to challenge.<\/p>\n<p>{{About tuberculosis}}<\/p>\n<p>BCG bacteriaImage copyrightScience Photo Library<\/p>\n<p>Two billion people worldwide are thought to have latent TB infection, but many will never develop active TB unless their immune systems are compromised<\/p>\n<p>TB patients must take antibiotics daily for six months<\/p>\n<p>Those with drug-resistant strains can be prescribed an average of 19 pills a day &#8211; 14,000 altogether<\/p>\n<p>They can have severe, life-altering side effects, including nerve damage, kidney and liver impairment, and loss of sight or hearing<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11162 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_88939448_20160324105901.jpg\" alt=\"Daniel Ng&#039;etich and Patrick Kipngetich, who were sent to prison after refusing to take TB medication, turned up to court in protective masks\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A court in Kenya has said jailing patients who refused to take their TB medication is unlawful.} Two men spent two-and-a-half months in prison in 2010. In the precedent-setting judgement, Judge Mumbi Ngugi said both safeguarding the public from infection and upholding the patients&#8217; rights was a tricky balancing act. But she added that a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24138"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24138"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}