ISLAMABAD, March 24: Tuberculosis (TB) is responsible for the deaths of 60,000 people out of 250,000 new patients registered in the country every year.

These figures were disclosed at a seminar, organized by the National TB Control Programme on the occasion of World TB Day at a local hotel on Monday.

After the seminar, a march was held. Participated by schoolchildren and representative of different health organizations, the march was led by health minister Mohammad Nasir Khan. It started from the Federal Government Services Hospital and culminated at Melody. The theme of World TB Day this year was “People with TB.”

Earlier, during the seminar, the participants were told that Pakistan ranked 8th among the high TB burden countries, and had 43 per TB prevalence rate in the whole of Eastern Mediterranean region. The deadly combination of TB and HIV/AIDS, and the threat of Multi Drug Resistance (MDR) TB as a result of poor treatment has posed formidable challenge to Pakistan.

The health minister feared that anyone could contract TB, since the disease thrived on the most vulnerable — the people living in poverty.

He said the government would not show any complacency with regard to TB control, adding that all provinces and districts were working with the federal government in the fight against the deadly menace. The government has already invested more than Rs600 million through development budgets alone in this regard.

Mr Khan said by according top priority to TB control, the government had declared a National Emergency on the World TB Day 2001. He said the government had launched Directly Observed Therapy Short-Course (DOTS) programme in all provinces, which was a major breakthrough in the control of the disease. He was happy to note that DOTS coverage had reached 63 districts (16 per cent of total coverage).

The TB control programme is fully integrated with the Primary Health Care setup, and the National TB Control Programme has been revised to encourage provinces and districts to implement the programme through technical support by the federal government, the minister said.

The notorious TB bacillus was discovered by Robert Koch on March 24, more than a century ago. The WHO has already declared TB as a global emergency. According to the WHO’s 1997 statistics, about one third of the world’s population was infected by mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 1995, there were about nine million new TB cases with three million deaths. Mycobacterium TB kills more people than any single infectious agent.

National TB Control Programme manager Dr Syed Karam Shah said, in Pakistan, we not only have to fight TB, but also many other related problems, such as ignorance, illiteracy, poverty, lack of doctors, medicines, funds, and absence of coordinated efforts in the public sector and participation of the private sector.