KARACHI: More than 600 transgender women and male sex workers were diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) and treated in six districts of Sindh, including Karachi, under a recently completed project.

This information was shared during a programme organised by Bridge Consultants Foundation (BCF), a non-profit organisation working on public health issues, at a local hotel on Friday.

The event aimed at highlighting the results of a TB diagnosis and treatment project focusing on male sex workers and transgender women in Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and Larkana from May 2017 to August 2018.

It also marked the launch of extending the project to eight districts of Punjab (Lahore, Kasur, Shaikhupura, Faisalabad, Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rawalpindi) and four other districts of Sindh after approval from relevant stakeholders.

Giving a presentation on the project supported by Stop TB Partnership and United Nations Office for Project Services, BCF executive director Dr Sharaf Ali Shah said about 500,000 cases of TB infections yearly occurred in Pakistan and approximately one-thirds of these cases were missed and failed to be diagnosed.

“Tuberculosis is a highly contagious disease and failure to diagnose and treat these cases means that infected people would spread the disease to other people,” he said, adding that the country could achieve global target to end TB by 2030 only if the missing TB cases were found and properly treated.

Explaining why specific population groups were targeted in the project, he said that transgender women and male sex workers were marginalised sections of society.

Most of them had no source of employment, found malnourished and lived under unhygienic overcrowded settings.

“They often use drugs and exchange sex for money. All these factors make them very vulnerable to HIV and TB infections. Marginalised populations have limited access to health care services due to stigma, discrimination, poverty and poor health seeking behaviours,” he said, adding that they constituted an important group often missed by both public and private health care systems.

Sharing details of the project, he said that more than 42,000 transgender persons and male sex workers were verbally screened at their hot spots/residences out of which 8,921 were suspected to have tuberculosis.

“Of these cases, 625 were diagnosed with tuberculosis and registered for treatment at public sector health units. We also provided food packages to all patients till their successful completion of treatment,” he noted.

Dr Zarfishan Tahir, director Punjab TB control programme, and Dr additional director Abdul khalique Domki said that the project findings would be helpful in the planning and policy to end TB till 2030.

Dr Shahana Urooj, the vice chancellor of the Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education, Professor Rafique Khanani, the president of Pakistan Infection Control Society, and Zarfishan Arbab, director Sindh social welfare department, also spoke.

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2018