PESHAWAR, Dec 16: Most of the returning Afghan refugees suffering from tuberculosis have been the source of spreading the epidemic among the people back home, a doctor working with an NGO, told Dawn here on Monday.

“In the wake of the casual attitude of the TB patients, the disease is fast spreading, because the patients suffering from the disease do not contact the doctors at the refugee camps, who have been treating them, to obtain transfer-out-card and continue their treatment in Afghanistan,” said DR Abdul Muqeem Sadaat, medical consultant of the UNHCR-funded NGO, Association for Community Development (ACD).

According to him, they registered about 4,500 new cases of TB on annual basis and provided them with free investigation and treatment facilities.

According to the UNHCR, since the start of repatriation programme of Afghan refugees in March last, some 1.5 million refugees have returned to their country. According to Dr Sadaat, they had been provided medical facilities in 105 refugees camps in NWFP and Balochistan since 2001. These facilities were previously provided by an NGO, Italian Cooperation for Development since 1984, which stopped its assistance in 2001. The operations of the same NGO were taken over by the ACD the same year.

He said the patients afflicted with TB, needed eight months regular treatment under the WHO guidelines of Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS).

He said most of the patients undergoing treatment in Pakistan, do not visit the doctors at the ACD, BHUs and RHCs at the time of their going back to get the necessary information regarding the status and treatment of their ailments. This, he said had risen the chances of inflicting the disease to several normal people in their household and neighbourhoods and even the whole of the country.

He said it would be in the interest of the TB patients if they contact their doctors and respective healthcare centres, because from there they would be issued an transfer-out-cards as well as free of cost drugs for two months.

But the problem, he said has been made complicated, because when these patients return to Afghanistan without getting the transfer-out-card, are facing difficulties in getting their treatment continued. There are scores of centres established under the supervision of the WHO to cure TB patients in different cities and towns of Afghanistan, but owing to non-availability of any record of previous treatment with these patients, they are unable to provide any assistance to them.

The number of cases, the medical consultant said was decreasing, because of the voluntary repatriation of the refugees under the umbrella of Afghan refugees. Most of the Afghans, the doctor said had pulmonary positive TB, who can transmit the ailment to others through coughing, sneezing and air in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the disease is totally curable within eight months, but the treatment should be organized and on regular basis, said Dr Sadaat.

He also said the cost of the TB treatment was nominal. A treatment for a single patients ranges from Rs2,000 to Rs3,000. Given the war-like situation in Afghanistan, there are no data of patients in that country, said he, adding that the people should contact their doctors in Pakistan before they embark on journey to Afghanistan, so the doctors and NGOs could provide them with follow-up treatment and save unwary people of being infected with the epidemic.