PESHAWAR, March 21: The provincial chapter of the Pakistan Chest Society has said that tuberculosis affects 2,50,000 people in the country annually, including 40,000 in the NWFP and Fata alone.
“Some eight million are infected with TB worldwide annually and two million of them die,” said society president Dr Arshad Javaid while addressing a news conference here on Monday.
He said the NWFP had 150 facilities to diagnose and treat tuberculosis free of cost in line with Dots (directly observed treatment short course).
Flanked by society’s secretary-general Dr Mukhtiar Zaman Afridi and vice-president Dr Abdul Ghafoor, he said the province had recorded 8,000 patients in 2002, 13,500 in 2003 and 18,000 in 2004. The figures were deplorable given the fact that trained doctors and paramedics extended free treatment to TB patients, he added.
According to him, the disease could be controlled by increasing level of awareness among the people.
