KARACHI, July 20: A chain of referral labs for timely diagnosis of patients suffering from multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis will start operating in different parts of the country, including Sindh, by end of next month.

Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi, WHO national programme officer for Sindh, told this news agency on Saturday that the growing incidence of MDR among the patients suffering from TB had made the provision of well-equipped labs to conduct specialized tests a prerequisite.

He mentioned that eight districts of the province — Karachi, Sukkur, Dadu, Tharparkar, Umerkot and Hyderabad — had already been covered under the DOTS programme, while case detection has commenced in Shikarpur and soon it would be started in Larkana, Jacobabad and other areas.

“Personnel are being trained for efficient execution of DOTS programme and the process is also underway to provide them drugs required for the nine-month course,” Dr Kazi added.

He said since the number of doctors, associated with health- care units under the former municipalities, has outnumbered the estimates, at present there is a large number of personnel who have to be trained and involved in the programme.

To a query, he said more than 10,000 cases of TB have been detected in the areas covered under DOTS programme and that growing awareness about symptoms of the disease has led to an increase in the number of patients turning for an adequate intervention.

According to him, concerted efforts were also needed to shun the stigma attached to the disease, as this has been observed to be the major hurdle in eradication of the disease.

Dr Kazi specifically referred to the experience in Mastung and other remote areas of Balochistan where people were reluctant to approach doctors.

“Here again approach is to adequately sensitize and train health-care providers regarding DOTS programme, during which the patients are provided with drugs under direct observation for the nine-month course.”

Dr Kazi mentioned that contrary to the prevalent trend in Balochistan and NWFP, where a parity exists between the male and female patients, the situation in Sindh is somewhat different with women observed to be more commonly inflicted with the disease as compared to men.

According to him, 16-20 million TB patients exist around the world; eight million get the disease every year and 2-3 million die, while 26 per cent of all avoidable deaths are due to tuberculosis.—APP