TB strikes Sialkot

WHO report states that TB cases in the district have risen exponentially in 2010.

SIALKOT: The Sialkot health department registered over 5,660 new Tuberculosis (TB) patients in the district during the first three quarters of 2010 (from January to October).

TB programme in-charge Dr Nadeem Nazeer disclosed this during an anti TB awareness-raising orientation session for journalists held under the auspices of the Mercy Corps Pakistan NGO. Nazeer said that the number of TB patients could be actually be much higher than 5,660, given that this figure only included patients who had been registered at government hospitals. “The number of TB patients at private sector hospitals could actually be much higher,” he said, adding that lack of awareness about the fatal disease was one of the primary causes behind the rising number of patients.

Dr Nazeer said that as many as 1,818 new TB patients were registered in Sialkot during the first quarter of 2010 (from January to March), 2,000 patients were registered during the second quarter of 2010 (from April to June) and 1,850 new TB patients were declared in the district during the third quarter (from July to September). Dr Nazeer said that at least 27 TB patients (most of them males) had died from the disease in Sialkot because they had given up on treatment. He said that despite this, the recovery rate for TB patients was 96 percent in Sialkot, while the default rate was 3 percent (the ratio of patients who failed to complete their treatment).

Nazeer said that there were many TB patients among the prisoners in the Sialkot district jail. “There are at least 13TB

patients amongst jail inmates in the district jail,” he said, adding that the health department had recently launched a directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS) in the Sialkot district jail with the sole aim of raising the anti-TB awareness among the  inmates. “DOTS also helps provide patients with complete anti-TB treatment and free medicines,” he said.

Dr Naseer said that 16 TB diagnostic centers and 100 TB treatment centers had been established in Sialkot, adding that  the complete anti-TB treatment course (for eight consecutive months) was being provided free of cost by the World Health Organization (WHO). “Under new recommendations of the WHO, one person (male or female) should assist every TB patient as a treatment supporter to assure that the patient undertakes the entire course,” he said.

Dr Nazeer and Mercy Corps organisers stressed upon the need to create awareness regarding the complete treatment of every TB patient and said that abandoning treatment could prove to be fatal.

The organisers sought the active cooperation and support of civil society and the media in raising awareness about Tuberculosis. On the occasion, Dr Nazeer said “TB is a 100% curable disease with an established treatment. Proper care and attention are vital to help patients bounce back from the disease,” he said.

He said that the TB had already been declared as a national emergency with the growing number of the TB patients in Pakistan. “An untreated TB patient is liable to cause 15 other people to contract the disease,” Dr Nazeer said, adding that someone somewhere in the world contracted TB every second.

Pakistan ranks 8th in having the largest number of TB patients in the world. In Pakistan, every year 300,000 persons are diagnosed with TB and the ages of 75 per cent of these patients lies between15 to 45 years

Under new recommendations of the WHO, one person (male or female) should assist every TB patient as a treatment supporter to assure that the patient undertakes the entire course.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2010.