PAKISTAN’s National TB Strategic Plan 2024-26 is a turning point in the country’s battle with tuberculosis. And as we mark World TB Day today with ‘Yes! We can end TB’, Pakistan cannot slip up on the targets set in January: the treatment of 528,600 cases per year by 2026. The disease, despite being preventable and curable, has hit more than 600,000 people in the country over the last two years. A sad fact is that Pakistan has the fifth highest burden of the communicable infection in the world. Earlier this month, the federal health secretary stated that 2.2m people, including children, suffer from the illness and according to WHO, the country “accounts for 61pc of the TB burden in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region”. Multidrug-resistant TB, caused by late diagnosis, incomplete treatment and the absence of health support in congested, poorly ventilated areas, afflicts some 15,000 on a yearly basis. Moreover, TB has a disproportionate impact on women, especially those living in rural environs, as social mores hamper their access to health services. It, therefore, becomes essential to form coherent programmes and policies aligned with gender rights.

Our people will continue to fall through the cracks until sustained political commitment to the cause ensures more funds and the targeted use of resources such as of the $285m grant approved by the Global Fund to help fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria under the new grant cycle of 2024-26. This scourge impairs a nation’s growth, and damages its health system and socioeconomic situation. Hence, an effective route to wiping out TB comprises awareness campaigns centred on treatment completion through mandatory visits to health units, improving and expanding diagnostic facilities and conveying information about problems that raise the chances of contracting TB, such as carriers, diabetes, malnourishment and poor immunity. Lastly, we will breathe easy if there is greater investment in researching the growing challenge and bolstering superior healthcare delivery.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2024