KABUL: For once, Afghanistan can report good news on the public health front. The country has been selected for a special award for its effective fight against tuberculosis (TB), which claims 20,000 lives every year, the majority of them women, the World Health Organisation has recently announced.

“The selection of Kabul for the award is a matter of pride for both the ministry of public health and WHO,” observed Dr Abdi Momin Ahmad, representative of the Geneva-based world health body, at a meeting in the Afghan capital.

Afghanistan’s Minister for Public Health, Syed Muhammad Amin Fatimi, said the number of TB cases was finally on the decline. Some 520 TB treatment centres in different parts of the country were providing free medication. “Controlling tuberculosis is one of our top priorities,” he said. According to the minister, the prize money of 65,000 US dollars would be spent on training more medical personnel to deal with TB. In conflict-torn Afghanistan, TB is a major public health challenge and it ranks 20th among 22 high-prevalence countries. According to WHO, approximately 70,000 new TB cases were reported in 2003, two-thirds of which were women—Dawn/IPS News Service