ISLAMABAD, March 21: Federal health minister Nasir Khan on Friday said Pakistan ranked 8th among the 22 high burden tuberculosis-affected countries in the world.

He said this while talking to the reporters at a meeting held in connection with the TB Day at a local hotel.

The health minister said tuberculosis (TB) was still a public health problem especially in developing countries, as it was affecting one third population of the world. He conceded that the TB control activities remained a low priority in Pakistan during the last three decades.

In 2,000 the TB control programme was revived by allocating funds for implementation of the WHO recommended DOTS (direct observation treatment system) strategy - a cost effective system.

About the future strategies to check the disease, he said they need to shift treatment policy from single drug to fixed dose combination (FDC), activate logistic support for monitoring and supervision both at the federal and provincial levels, capacity building at different levels and implementation of DOTS in larger cities in urban areas. For the implementation of the DOTS strategy, private sector, tertiary hospitals and medical colleges need to be involved, he added.

Through this strategy, it was expected to provide 100 per cent DOTs coverage to the entire population by year 2005, he said, adding that the national tuberculosis programme (NTP) was responsible for guidelines, technical support, coordination, monitoring, evaluation and research, whereas the provincial programmes were responsible for implementation, securing funds, coordination and supervision.

He said an encouraging progress was made by the government both at the national and provincial level in the past couple of years. “It has been recognized that Pakistan was among few countries, which had expanded DOTS through existing government resources. The national tuberculosis programme (NTP) has secured funds through the federal and provincial projects including 121 million additional grant during year 2001-02.”

The health minister said inter-agency coordination committee (IACC) had also been constituted to mobilise resources with the help of the international donors. He said the TB control programme activities were also looked after in Northern Areas and AJK.