PESHAWAR, Dec 27: The government is facing the challenges of the diagnosis and treatment of patients suffering from the co-infection of TB, HIV/Aids and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, speakers at a seminar on TB awareness said on Wednesday.

There is a need for coordinated and multi-sectoral approach at all levels to strengthen the basic health centres for the treatment of co-infection and multi-drug resistant TB, said Dr Abdul Ghafoor, manager of the NWFP TB Control Programme.

He said multi-drug resistant TB was emerging as a threat because treatment facilities for this disease were not available at the general health centres. He said funds were required to establish special centres for the disease.

Treatment cost of one patient is about Rs200,000, he added.

There are about 290,000 tuberculosis patients in Pakistan out of which 40,000 are in the NWFP.

Every year some eight million people are infected with TB worldwide and two million of them succumb to the disease, said Dr Ghafoor.

He said the only way to control the disease was to create awareness among people so that they could contact health facilities in case TB symptoms were noticed in a person.

Dr Ghafoor said the NWFP had achieved a target of 100 per cent treatment coverage of TB under the Direct Observation Therapy Strategy in January 2005. The cure rate here was 93 per cent while the international standard fixed by the World Health Organisation was 85 per cent.

Dr Abdul Latif said TB was a poor-specific disease that ultimately led to death if patients did not take interest in treatment. Today the disease is 100 per cent curable, he said, adding that Germany, the GTZ, WHO and some other donor agencies were supporting the TB control programme in Pakistan.

TB, he said, was a highly dangerous infectious disease and Pakistan had been ranked sixth among the countries with TB patients. He said the country had to make all out efforts to get rid of this disease.

Dr Maqsood Ahmad of WHO said a TB patient started feeling marked improvement within one or two months of treatment but they should continue treatment for eight consecutive months. Some of the patients do not complete treatment due to which they develop multi-drug resistant TB which is extremely dangerous, he pointed out.

He said treatment of TB was easy but TB patients faced social stigma due to which they avoided to be known as TB patients. He said it was the responsibility of the media, religious scholars and community elders to play their role for creating awareness about the importance of treatment and against their stigma.

Dr Khawaja Laiq Ahmad, Dr Nek Dad Afridi, Dr Shahid Hanif and others also spoke.

They said TB didn’t spread through hand-shake, sharing of towel, meal or bathrooms, but advised the patients to cover their mouths while coughing or sneezing.They said the people with two weeks coughs and evening temperature should consult doctors to exclude TB as a cause.