HYDERABAD, Dec 11: Seventy per cent of the tuberculosis (TB) patients who had reported at the TB centres across the province have gotten rid of the fatal disease with the help of DOTS programme, says Dr Abdus Samad Shaikh, acting president of the Sindh Anti-TB Association.

He said at a training programme for community health workers held at the association’s Chest Clinic in Unit No.6 of Latifabad on Monday that all the medicines and logistics had been made available at all the centres by the joint efforts of the Global Fund, National TB Control Programme and Anti-TB Association.

Dr Shaikh, who is also national programme officer of WHO, said that before the launch of DOTS programme the ratio of successful treatment among TB patients was only 30 per cent, which had now increased to 70 per cent.

He said that the DOTS system of treatment had proved extremely successful throughout the world. All the suspected TB patients should report at the centres where treatment was free of charge, he said.

The association’s general secretary, Mazharuddin Memon advocate, said that the association had established diagnostic and treatment centres in all the districts of the province with the assistance of Global Fund, where thousands of patients had been treated and hundreds others were under treatment.

He appealed to philanthropists to make generous donations to the association to help it run the DOTS programme in a successful manner. The training programme was jointly organised by the Sindh Anti-TB Association, Global Fund, National TB Control Programme and WHO to train community health workers in the DOTS system of treatment.

KILLED: Abdul Ghafoor Soomro, 15, was stabbed to death during a clash between two groups over a petty dispute in Janhan Soomro village in Tando Muhammad Khan on Tuesday.