One Woman, One Clinic, and a New Front Line Against TB

Every week, Rakiya Maitama walks the lanes of Riminkebbe, Inusawa, Zango and Dantamashe in Ungogo LGA, Kano. She stops at doorsteps, speaks with women in their compounds and gathers neighbours to talk about tuberculosis: the cough that lasts more than two weeks, the night sweats, and the fact that TB can be cured.

Rakiya is a TB Champion with RAHAMA Girl Child and Women Empowerment Initiative (RAHAMA) under the ASCENT DR-TB project, funded by Unitaid and supported by Treatment Action Group (TAG). Since February 2026, she has been the link between these communities and Galula Health Clinic.

Many people she meets have never thought of their cough as serious. Many women, busy with households and children, rarely go to the clinic for themselves. So Rakiya kept going back, house by house and week by week. Between March and October 2026, she reached more than 8,300 people, including over 2,300 women. She screened 517 people for TB symptoms, referred 458 to Galula Health Clinic, and made 254 home visits to support people on treatment and their families.

Then something changed inside the clinic itself.

“Now in the Galula facility, TB screening is included in the ANC unit due to the awareness delivered by the TB Champion,” Rakiya wrote in her report in March 2026.

Within weeks, screening had also reached the immunisation unit. Later the clinic took a further step and added TB screening to its nutrition unit, so children brought in for growth monitoring and nutrition care are now checked for TB too.

Mothers who come for antenatal care, babies brought for vaccines, and children seen for nutrition are now all screened for TB as part of a routine visit. They don’t need a separate trip, extra cost or special permission. 8 TB cases have already been identified through the integrated screening.

What Rakiya is proudest of is that the change no longer depends on her. Whether she is at the clinic or out in the community, the facility screens for TB as part of its routine services.

One woman’s persistence has become part of how a clinic cares for its community.

This work is part of the ASCENT DR-TB project, funded by Unitaid. RAHAMA’s community grant is supported by the Treatment Action Group (TAG). We thank the management and staff of Galula Health Clinic, the community leaders of Ungogo LGA and the Kano State and National TBLCP.