The "World TB Day" was observed globally including Pakistan with a pledge to promote awareness about the disease, which is on rise in the Third World countries.
Different organisations of Lahore, including the Pakistan Medical Society (PMS) and Greenstar Services arranged walks, seminars, scientific sessions, symposiums and special functions across the country to mark the day with the WHO theme this year, "I am stopping TB".
"Pakistan stands among the group of countries that have highest recorded tuberculosis (TB) related deaths", said the speakers at a seminar held under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to mark the World Tuberculosis Day 2008 on Monday.
Speaker said that tuberculosis is increasing in the developing countries due to lack of food, sanitation and treatment facilities are still at the stage of improvement. These countries are threatened with an epidemic if, appropriate and concrete steps are not taken for its prevention, they said. The Chairman, PMS, Dr Masood Akhter Sheikh said, " one person, in every 20 second is dying of TB. It has become one of the fatal diseases in some of the developing countries. Therefore, every country should design its own means and ways to control the disease keeping in view the global TB control initiative'.
Other speakers, Asmat Ullah Chaudhry, Dr Zia ur Rehman, Professor Irfan Mahboob and Dr Aslam Chaudhry stressed to create awareness about the TB, improve the economic condition and in time diagnosis and treatment to control the spread of TB.
Explaining the history of the disease, they said disease was incurable half a century ago, but now it is 100 percent curable and we are targeting to control the disease by the year 2015. Awareness is vital for both urban and rural population, they said.
"Four out of five TB patients in Pakistan still remain undetected or untreated, while some doctors do not know how to write rational prescription for a TB positive patient. One untreated TB case can affect 10-16 people within an year of time," they said.