HYDERABAD, (MILLAT/APP): Over 0.4 million people are affected
from tuberculosis in Pakistan and if sincere steps are not initiated
for treatment of tuberculosis patients, each patient can affect 10 to
15 persons in a year.
World Tuberculosis day was observed on Friday, March, 24 in the world
including Pakistan and the theme of World TB Day 2017 was “Unite to
End TB.” Tuberculosis is an important public health problem that is
preventable and curable.
Talking to APP former Director Tuberculosis control Sindh Dr. Asmat
Ara Khursheed informed that TB was producing nine million patients
every year in the world, of them 1.7 million patients were losing
their lives.
Dr. Asmat Ara said that Tuberculosis was the only disease against
which the government has taken initiatives on war footing-basis and
succeeded in controlling it in efficient manner.
She said that as a result of the efforts, Pakistan has lowered down at
number eight from number six among those countries of the world, which
had maximum numbers of tuberculosis patients. India and China are
still at number one and number two positions respectively in the
ranking, she added.
Dr. Asmat Ara said that tuberculosis was treatable disease and there
was the need of mass awareness aboujt the disease so that it could be
eradicated from the country through community participation.
She further informed that tuberculosis claiming the death of two
million people every year in the world and ratio in Pakistan is 62
thousand in a year.
Besides, she informed that three hospitals of Sindh including Indus
Hospital Karachi, Ojha Institute Karachi and Institute of Chest
Diseases Kotri have been upgraded with ‘Multi Drug Resistance’ (MDR)
System. The medicines stores have also been upgraded in all districts
of Sindh while TB Survey and research are being carried out in
cooperation with Global Fund, she said and informed that selected
doctors were being trained with modern treatment technique , she
added.
She further informed that with the cooperation of Sindh Government,
warehouses had been established in Karachi, Hyderabad and Larkana
where the medicines were being preserved accordingly.
The next step of Tuberculosis control in Sindh is to provide required
facilities for treatment of TB affected children in the province, she
informed and added that doctors from 13 districts of the province had
been selected and were being trained with provision of required
medicines.
Besides, she informed that Tuberculosis Treatment Centres had also
been established in all central prisons of Sindh.
The tuberculosis Control Programme Sindh is managing 270 free of cost
diagnostic centres where free of cost tuberculosis treatment is being
provided to patients, she said and informed that 11 diagnostic centers
and 35 treatment centers were functional in Hyderabad.
She emphasized the need of adopting effective measures for eradicating
Tuberculosis from the country.