ISLAMABAD: Secretary Health Iftiikhar Ali Shallwani has said the government was committed to fighting tuberculosis (TB) by providing free diagnosis and treatment at 1,700 centres across the country.

He was addressing a “Union conference on lung health in Paris,” a press release issued by the health ministry said on Sunday.

He said substantial resources were allocated by the government for diagnosis and quality treatment of the disease.

“The government has committed 33 million dollars to the cause. There are 1700 free state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment facilities operating in the length and breadth of Pakistan. During the year 2022, more than 424,566 TB cases were successfully treated across the country. The treatment success rate remained 94pc of the TB cases notified in 2021. The diagnostic services include the network of 1,800 microscopy labs, 420 molecular diagnostics GeneXpert, 17 culture labs, etc,” he said.

He said 3,684 drug resistant (DR) TB cases were enrolled on second line anti-TB treatment against estimated 15,900 cases through 50 DRTB health care services. He said TB/HIV collaboration - screening of TB patients for HIV status - was performed for 61pc of registered TB patients and social support in the form of cash incentives of Rs12,000 per month during treatment for all enrolled patients.

Dr Shallwani said training of more than 7,500 healthcare workers through online courses was also being carried out.

He said the TB Control Programme, with the support of the Global Fund, WHO and other partners, was implementing a national strategic plan 2020–2023 to end TB in Pakistan and NSP 2024-26 had also been developed.

Global Fund has allocated over $185 million to Pakistan for the implementation period - January 2024 to December 2026.

The secretary said there was also a plan to scale up rapid molecular diagnostics, GeneXpert machines, from 420 to 774 machines in 2024, expansion of digital X-ray and Artificial Intelligence (AI) from 12 to 136 machines for TB diagnosis, strengthening of 37 divisional laboratories for epidemic preparedness through provision of 25 hi-tech PCR machines, digitisation of provincial and district supply chain management.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2023