Pakistan ranks sixth in TB patients: WHO

Speakers alarmed by rising incidence blame quacks who give medicines that worsen the disease.

PESHAWAR:

Experts at a seminar expressed concern over the increasing number of tuberculosis (TB) patients in Pakistan.

In 2010, after the registration of 0.413 million patients of which 0.3 million are suffering from TB in their lungs, Pakistan moved up two spots to 6th in the list of countries with the highest number of TB patients in the world, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report. TB kills around 48,000 Pakistanis every year.

The seminar was arranged by the Association for Community Development (ACD), a non-government organisation, on the eve of World TB Day on March 24.

Dr Akmal Naveed, Director ACD, said Pakistan jumping ranks from 8th to 6th in the world was an alarming sign. He said out of the more than 300,000 new TB cases registered each year in Pakistan, 75 per cent are children.

Most of these patients go to quacks who give them medicines that worsen the disease. He said a thorough treatment of eight months in Pakistan cures the disease completely. He added that infected patients need to go for medical checkups in the second, fifth and seventh months of treatment. There are 1,050 public TB centres all over Pakistan where anyone can get free treatment, he added.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa TB Control Program Project Director Dr Abdul Latif said that in 2002, there were 8,010 registered patients infected with TB, which rose to 35,415 in December 2010. Another 6,000 cases were registered in the province in the past 70 days he added.

He said in K-P, patients prefer going to private clinics for treatment, therefore the authorities are now providing free medicines to private clinics and hospitals so that free medication for TB is available to all segments of society.

Published in The Express  Tribune, March 17^th, 2011.