KARACHI, March 23: Like in other countries around the globe, the World TB Day is being observed in Pakistan on Thursday (March 24) with meetings, walks and other events to be held in different parts of the country with an aim of expressing concern about the infectious disease and create awareness about it.
The first TB Day had been observed in 1982 under the aegis of the World Health Organization (WHO) and an international union working against TB and lungs diseases. The day was marked a century after Dr Robert Koch presented his findings about TB bacillus to a group of doctors in Berlin.
The observance of the day is aimed at raising concerns among the governments, policy makers and community leaders for action on all fronts against TB which, experts believe, can be cured, controlled and eventually be eliminated.
According to the theme of the day, the efforts of frontline TB care providers and their crucial role in stopping TB would be highlighted on the occasion. The frontline workers included public health staff at grassroots level and technicians in laboratories, NGOs and community groups, clinicians and nurses, private medical practitioners, pharmacists, academics, students and the activists who help diagnose and treat TB patients.
According to the WHO, about two billion people, making one-third of the world population, are infected with TB bacillus or are at risk. It is estimated that about 250,000 new cases of tuberculosis emerge every year in Pakistan, which is considered as home to about 40 per cent of TB patients.
Apart from the patients who succumb to the ravages of the tuberculosis, there are a number of related miseries and social sufferings which call for raising awareness about the international health threat presented by TB.
Pakistan is among the countries where people fall victim to TB when they are young and bread-earner of their family. As such, the whole family is made to suffer economically.
According to health experts, correct diagnosis and prescription, besides total compliance of the guidelines, still remained the critical factors in managing the TB, despite a lot of efforts and money being put in to control the situation. The situation can be attributed to the lack of collaboration among all the agencies and bodies working in the area.
It is said that majority of the normal TB patients was failing to take standard combination of the required drugs for a specified period.
Referring to the early dropout of tuberculosis patients from treatment, an expert cited the example of the national TB programme in China, and said that it had implemented a new approach, called DOTS-directly observed therapy, a short course in which TB patients remained under ‘watch’ on a daily basis for six months as they took their antibiotics.
The programme helped reduce TB prevalence by 40 per cent between 1990 and 2000 and dramatically improved the care in half of China, he added.
According to a source, the Sindh TB Association, through its designated centres in districts and talukas is providing free of cost treatment, including medicines, whereas it is also moving towards DOT system for treating patients.
Under the DOT course, a health worker administers medicines to a TB patient for three months and keeps him under observation after which a social worker give medicine to the patient for another five months. In this eight-month period, the patient overcomes the disease.
Talking about prevalence of TB among children, Prof Iqbal Ahmed Memon, the head of Paediatric Unit-II of the Civil Hospital Karachi, said that a study carried out for 2003 and 2004 gave to understand that 18 per cent of the cases admitted to the paediatric wards of this hospital pertained to tuberculosis. “Out of them, 50 per cent cases pertained to lung and pulmonary diseases and 25 per cent to tuberculosis meningitis. The remaining cases fell in other categories of TB,” he said, adding that there was a considerable load of TB patients in the children wards.
He said that the number of TB cases in children was relatively less than that in other age groups and the affected children came from poor population of slum areas.
The diagnosis of TB is still difficult to make due to varied and subtle presence in patients. On the other hand, patients or their guardians also avoid volunteering any information about tuberculosis in the family, which could be attributed to the perpetual fear and lack of understanding that the disease is curable.
Experts believe that early reporting of the disease, easy acceptance of diagnosis by a patient’s family and adhering to complete the course of therapy may lead to quick recovery, less complications, early detection and treatment.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Chest Society and Sindh Government Hospital, Korangi No. 5, have organized a TB Awareness Walk on Thursday at 9:30am at the hospital. Senior government officials are expected to attend the walk along with the residents of Korangi and Landhi, said a communication.
