KARACHI, March 31: The Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) will start screening the population for tuberculosis in various towns of Karachi in phases from May, said Prof Masood Hameed Khan, Vice-Chancellor of the university, on Saturday.
Talking to Dawn, Prof Khan said that DUHS wanted to adopt a more practical path in the case of TB, and that was why it had planned to form a core group on the subject and undertake a massive awareness and treatment campaign.
He said that initially the select group of university’s faculty members and students would go in one town of the city to test people for detection of TB and provision of necessary treatment.
After detection, patients will be given options of either reporting to the Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases (OICD) for treatment and medication, or to get the facilities at their doorsteps through the DUHS teams, he added, saying that respective town nazims will also be taken into confidence and would be requested to extend relevant support.
The vice-chancellor said that the university will utilize a mobile diagnostic unit, already available with it, for the purposes of sputum and blood tests and relevant radiological tests. The treatment will be extended free-of-cost, he remarked, informing that prior to the fielding of staff for conducting tests, area people will be educated on the subject and handed over relevant literature so that those in the risk group could volunteer themselves for screening against the contagious disease.
Earlier, speaking as chief guest at a seminar on tuberculosis, organized by DUHS, Prof Khan said that students of Dow Medical, Sindh Medical College and Nursing Institute could get themselves registered as working volunteers in the screening campaign.
He said that 22 countries of the world were most affected by TB and Pakistan was seventh on the list. He noted that organizing seminars for awareness of TB was good but there was a need to review the strategy for controlling and eradicating the harmful disease, which was largely preventable.
Among other speakers, director of OICD, Dr Ashraf Sadiq, said that for ages TB was considered to be an incurable disease, but now a cure was possible if it was diagnosed at the right time.
The alarming spread of TB is due to poor situation of health, impure and substandard food, polluted drinking water and low human resistance against the disease.
Some of the medical practitioners made presentations on the topics of TB situation in Pakistan, TB and renal diseases, role of media and ulema in control of TB, TB and diabetes and diagnosis, prevention and treatment of TB.
Professor Zaman Sheikh said that diabetics might be affected by TB because their resistance powers decreased with every passing day. If the weight of such patients decreases rapidly, they should have TB tests done, he suggested.
He further said that if a person felt severe pain in any part of the body, he should not ignore it and must assure a proper check-up from any good physician because TB may be in any part of the body besides the lungs.
Dr Faizullah Shafqat, Dr Nisar Rao, Dr Zafaryab Hussain and Dr Rubina Naqvi also spoke at the seminar.
