Community-wide TB screening clinic heads to Cape Dorset

Nunavut's Department of Health is heading to Cape Dorset next month to run a community-wide tuberculosis screening clinic.

The visit forms part of the federal government and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami's goal to eliminate tuberculosis in Inuit communities by 2030.

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Tuberculosis is a contagious bacterial disease that infects the lungs. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, the rate among Inuit in Canada is more than 290 times higher than Canadian non-Indigenous people.

Cape Dorset, population 1,441, will be the third community to get a clinic since Feb. 2018, following Qikiqtarjuaq and Whale Cove. According to numbers from 2017, Qikiqtarjuaq had the highest rate of TB in the territory with 10 per cent of the population infected.

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Visit to last a couple months

Nunavut Health Minister George Hickes said Cape Dorset's clinic will be in the community for two to three months.

"I can't enforce enough on how important it is to go and be screened," he said.

"You may not show any symptoms or be aware of anything, but if we can eliminate you and get the majority of the community screened … we want to make sure that people are accessing the treatment that's available."

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Hickes wasn't able to estimate how many people have TB in Cape Dorset, and pointed to that fact as one of the reasons a team is heading there next.

"Every year, there have been cases reported," he said. "We want to make sure that with the results of the community-wide screening we'll be able to target people [with] latent and active TB so they can be treated properly."

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He praised community leaders in Cape Dorset for their co-operation in helping identify a spot to set up the clinic and making sure people understand what it's there for, and why it's important to go.

"It's really important that people go in to get tested whether they feel they've been exposed or not, that way at least we can take you off the list of people that need to be screened to make sure we get to as much of the community as possible," Hickes said.

"That's the whole purpose of this, when we go into a community to do a community-wide screening, we want it to be as wide as possible."

Health department staff didn't give a specific opening date, but it will be located in the community hall.

Hickes estimates the screening clinics have costed around $1 million per visit so far.