Around 30 million people of the world breathing their last every year as a result of Tuberculosis while in Pakistan it claims the lives of around 70,000 people in a year.
In the year 1933, the United Nations had declared Tuberculosis as world disaster because of its rapid spread in many countries following unawareness of precautionary measures, said Asmat Ara, the Director Tuberculosis Control Sindh while talking to this scribe here on Monday on the World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, which was observed with the pledge to control and eradicate the disease from Sindh and the country on (today), 24th March.
She said that the disease was a stigma 50 years ago, and people did not like to reveal or share information with others if TB virus affected them. "However, the day we end the stigma, we will be able to get control over 50 percent of the disease," added. Asmat Ara said the causes for the continued rise in the TB case including poor health infrastructure, poverty, increasing population and lake of interest from the government functionaries. She said that the government fully committed to provide free diagnostic and treatment facilities to those who are suffering from Tuberculosis and the government had improved Detection of Tuberculosis System due to which TB cases are being properly treated.
Stressing the need for an aggressive strategy to control the disease, Dr Asmat Ara assured that the government would continue to support the TB Control Programme in the province. She informed that the government is successfully implementing its Dots programme under which free diagnostic and treatment services are being provided in every district of the country.
In Sindh, she informed that the hospitals and clinics are offering free Tuberculosis treatment to patients so that taking advantage of such humanitarian services, the patients could save their lives. She said that the scourge of TB never eradicated but eliminated because human beings are its host and the Tuberculosis virus could be transmitted through breading and coughing.
Asmat Ara elaborated that the TB is not only a poor peoples disease, but also infect rich people and there is the need to educate rich people to contribute to the treatment of poor TB patients so that the disease could not be break out. She said that awareness among the people is the only way to control the disease so that they could contact health facilities in case Tuberculosis symptoms were noticed in a person.
She said that Tuberculosis patient starts feeling marked improvement within one or two months of treatment but they should continue treatment for eight consecutive months and some of the patients do not complete treatment due to which they develop multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis, which is extremely dangerous.
She informed that the treatment of Tuberculosis is easy but the patients suffer extreme social stigma due to which they feel shy of calling themselves as the patients by their near and dear ones.
She said that patients having persistent cough for three weeks, low grade fever, night sweating, loss of weight and appetite and blood in sputum should contact with the specialists for clinical examining and the sputum microscopy is the best diagnosis, which is being done free of cost in public sector health facilities.
She further said that the any person with a cough for more than three weeks, fever, weight loss should be screening for Tuberculosis but the children can easily contract the disease and such it was available that patients pay special attention to little children in case their coughing continued for two months and physicians should not referral of the children suspected of TB to major treatment centres so that further complications could be avoided.
Asmat Ara said that unfortunately despite all efforts still remained the major cause of the mortality in the Pakistan and are spreading and Tuberculosis posed serious threats and ever-increasing problem in the Pakistan affecting health and social welfare. She said that it is a major responsibility of the media, religious scholars and community elders to make their level best to remove such stigma associated with the disease.
She emphasised the need for adopting effective measures for eradicating tuberculosis from the country. She said that the Tuberculosis is the only disease against which the government has taken initiatives on war footing-basis and succeeded in controlling it in successful manner.
She said that as a result of the efforts, Pakistan has gone down from number six position to number eight among those countries of the world, which has maximum numbers of tuberculosis patients and the India and China are still at number one and number two positions in the ranking.
Asmat Ara said that Tuberculosis is treatable disease and there is the need of mass awareness against the disease so that it could be eradicated from the country through community participation.
He said that people must be informed that TB was a curable disease, but that if ignored, it might become life threatening. Asmat Ara emphasised the need of launching a massive awareness campaign against Tuberculosis disease, which they said is treatable with proper medication. She also called upon the print and electronic media to extend co-operation and make awareness among the people for taking preventive measures against tuberculosis.
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