PESHAWAR, July 28: NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan has directed the officials concerned to seek religious leaders’ help in awareness campaigns and treating tuberculosis (TB) in pilot districts.

He was presiding over a two-day inter-district quarterly review meeting of the Dots programme here on Thursday.

The minister cautioned some EDOs for showing poor performance in bringing the desired results.

Lauding the establishment of a free treatment centre for multi-drug resistant TB at LRH, he directed the authorities of TB control programme to devise strategy for utilising the services of religious leaders as well as potentials of the education department to combat TB.

Earlier, Dr Abdul Ghafoor, provincial manager, TB control programme, highlighted the achievements of the project.

“Around 8,000 TB cases were registered in the province in the first quarter of this fiscal year,” he maintained.

The manager elaborated that 151 diagnostic and 800 treatment centres were providing free services to TB patients in the province while the first ever multi-drug resistant TB treatment centre in public sector in the province was at Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.

Dr Laura Gilleni, WHO consultant, expressed satisfaction over the performance of the TB control programme in Pakistan and, especially, in the NWFP and termed TB detection and treatment rate good in the country.

Earlier, the meeting reviewed the performance of the programme in the province.

EDOs health, district TB control officer, representatives of the National TB Control Programme and WHO attended the meeting.