TAXILA: The World TB (tuberculosis) Day was observed in Hassanabdal on Wednesday to raise awareness about the health, social and economic consequences of tuberculosis and to step up efforts to end it.

In this connection, a seminar was held at Tehsil Headquarters Hospital which was largely attended by health practitioners, paramedical staff, lady health workers and lady health visitors.

Speaking on the occasion, speakers said despite significant progress over the last decades, TB continued to be the top infectious killer worldwide, claiming over 4,500 lives a day.

They were of the view that the emergence of multi drug-resistant TB poses a major health security threat and could risk gains made in the fight against TB. They were of the view that Pakistan ranks four among countries with high incidence of multi-drug resistant TB as estimated 27,000 new cases are reported every year.

They informed the participants of the seminar that TB was more common in under developed countries where governments were unable to provide proper health care facilities to a large number of people.

“Another major reason of increasing occurrence of TB is lack of awareness among the people,” they added.

Speaking on this occasion, District Health Authority Chief Executive Dr Jawad Elahi said the theme of World TB Day 2021 is ‘The Clock is Ticking’, which conveys the sense that the world is running out of time to act on the commitments made by global leaders to end TB.

He said the government has paid special attention to this critical issue and strengthened the programme for providing a free treatment to TB patients.

He said more than 300,000 TB patients are benefitting from free diagnostic and treatment facilities every year in Pakistan.

Medical Superintendent Dr Shehryar Iqbal said that tuberculosis was an infectious bacterial disease caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs. He said it was transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the disease and tuberculosis is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects one’s lungs.

Later, a TB screening camp was arranged and an awareness walk was also held to sensitise people about the danger, precautionary measures and proper treatment of the disease.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2021