PESHAWAR, Feb 20: The government has planned to extend the Dots strategy to the entire province by 2005 to treat tuberculosis patients, doctors informed the participants of three-day workshop.

"The NWFP had been providing treatment to TB patients under Dots (directly observed treatment short course) to 60 per cent of the 8,000 patients so far registered. Dots coverage will be extended to 100 per cent area by the year 2005," TB Control Programme Manager Dr Abdul Ghafoor said here on the concluding day the workshop on Friday.

At present Dots was being implemented in 17 districts in the NWFP out of the 24, he said, adding that the routine treatment was in progress in since 1994.

Dots strategy ensures that the patients use the anti-TB drugs under the direct supervision of the doctors. The WHO guidelines say that 70 per cent of the total cases should be detected to lessen the magnitude by 50 per cent by 2010. The detection rate in the NWFP at present was 68 per cent.

The workshop was organized to educate the district TB control officers, opinion-makers and workers and devise a strategy to control the disease.

"This year, the government has allocated Rs16million against the last year's Rs14.5million for the treatment of TB patients," he said.

Mr Ghafoor said that TB was 100 per cent curable, but the patients should continue their treatment under Dots for eight months. Every year, he said 35,000 new cases were being reported in the province.

TB is a public health problem that affected 80 people in the age group of 14-49 years, the productive period of life. According to WHO, one in every four patients die of TB and the organization stressed the treatment under Dots.

"We have been providing free drugs to all the registered patients. The government has allocated Rs62.8million for TB programme for five years 2000-05," he said.

He informed the participants that the WHO had provided medicines worth Rs15million for 7,000 patients under its Global Drug Facility programme to the NWFP. Besides, 10 per cent of the budget was also allocated to purchase of the anti-TB drugs at the district level.Germany had also pledged an amount of Rs530million to strengthen the programme, he said and added that the PC-1 for the utilization of the assistance was in pipeline.

He said that TB killed three million people worldwide annually, also sealed the fate of 250,000 in Pakistan, with 95 per cent of the total deaths occurring in the developed countries.

Pakistan, he said ranked sixth on the list of highly burdened countries concerning TB after India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nigeria urging the doctors to make strenuous efforts to treat the patients.

He said that any person with sneezing and three-week cough history should see a doctor to do sputum microscopy and exclude TB as cause.

He said the signs and symptoms are low-grade fever accompanied by chest pain, evening sweats, loss of weight and appetite and blood in sputum.