PESHAWAR, Dec 28: Lack of awareness among general public is one of the main reasons hampering efforts aimed at controlling tuberculosis (TB) in the province.

This was stated by NWFP TB Control Programme Manager Abdul Ghafoor while addressing a media workshop here on Wednesday. “TB is curable. Its treatment and diagnosis are free and it cannot transmit through sharing towel, meal and handshake.”

He said 250,000 TB cases were registered in the country annually, including 35,000 in NWFP and Fata.

“We have established 163 diagnostic and 800 treatment centres, where 19,500 cases were registered over the past nine months,” the programme manager said, adding that the government had allocated Rs62.5 million for anti-TB programme of which 95 per cent had been utilized.

“Unfortunately the disease affects people between the age of 14 and 49 which is the most productive period,” he said, adding that patients having cough associated with evening fever, loss of weight and chest pain should immediately contact doctors for sputum microscopy.

He said TB could affect lungs, intestines, brain, heart, kidneys, etc., and added that patients should cover their nose while coughing or sneezing to avoid spread of the disease.

In his speech, Dr Khwaja Laiq Ahmed stressed the need for close coordination between the health department and media to enhance public awareness regarding the disease.

Dr Abdul Latif said that women patients could use anti-TB drugs during pregnancies and dispelled the impression that the disease harmed fertility.

Sociologist Shandana Khisro of the World Health Organization called for doing away with the stigma associated with TB. “Gone are the days when TB patients were sent to sanatorium and made to sleep and eat in segregation,” she emphasized.

Ms Khisro said TB patients could live normally, but noted that most hid their disease because they were then looked down upon by people.