World TB Day curtain-raiser: With rising number of cases, intl funding required to combat TB

Pakistan has the fifth highest number of TB patients in the world.

ISLAMABAD:

Tuberculosis (TB) patients in the country are expected to number 300,000 this year, a six per cent rise from 2012 and an international effort is required to fight the disease in 118 low and middle-income countries including Pakistan, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) press release issued on Monday.

Pakistan has the fifth highest number of TB cases in the world and the fourth highest in terms of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB. WHO’s National Professional Officer for Tuberculosis Control Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi said Pakistan’s National TB Control Programme detected and provided treatment to over 284,000 cases last year and the figure will rise in 2013. Twelve tertiary care institutions are providing treatment to 1,100 MDR-TB patients enrolled for two years or more.

A week ahead of the World TB Day, observed on March 24 since last year, the WHO and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) issued a statement in Geneva stating that at least $1.6 billion in international funding is required for treatment and prevention of TB.

The $1.6 billion funding gap, identified by WHO and GFATM, to fight TB will be on top of an estimated $3.2 billion that may be provided by the low and middle-income countries themselves. Filling this gap could enable full treatment for 17 million TB and MDR TB patients and save 6 million lives between 2014 and 2016, the press release stated.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2013.