“TB is curable but it has to be treated with uninterrupted medication,” she said. Dr Qayyum was talking to The Express Tribune in context of the World Tuberculosis Day observed on March 24th every year.
She suggested that the citizens should not take persistent cough lightly. She said such cases should be checked for TB. She said that there had been improvements in the treatment set-ups over the years. Organisations such a World Health Organisation (WHO) were helping to ensure the availability of drugs and subsidising costs of tests.
Kunwar Muhammad Idrees Khan, the Anti-TB Association general secretary, said that a few years ago TB was generally found in poor communities and the treatment cost a lot. Now, he added, the treatment facilities have improved.
Dr Syed Nazim Hussain Bukhari, the Shaikh Zayed Hospital’s professor of pulmonology, explained that TB could be fatal.
Prolonged chest infection that included symptoms such as coughing and weight-loss, could indicate TB, he said. It was important to contact a chest specialist as soon as possible, he added.
He regretted that many doctors were not trained properly and the lectures and curriculums did not prepare them to treat TB patients, as they should be. “If patients stop taking medicines after a while, the disease can reappear. It is extremely important that patients follow the doctor’s directions over at least eight months,” he said.
Gulab Devi Hospital was the only hospital in the city with isolation wards for TB patients.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2011.
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