Health experts have said that tuberculosis is a curable disease, which can be prevented by proper treatment. They urged the media for creating public awareness in detecting and bringing all tuberculosis patients under cost-free treatment facilities to make the country free from the preventable disease. This was stated by President of Pakistan Chest Society (PCS), Professor Dr Arshad Javed while addressing at a news conference on eve of World TB Day with theme "United to End TB", at Peshawar Press Club on Friday.
Flanked by the PCS Central Secretary General Dr Sadia Ashraf, General Secretary provincial chapter Shahid Afridi, Central Secretary Information Dr Taj Muhammad and Co-ordinator Khyber Pakhtunkhwa TB Control Programme (KP-TBCP) Dost Muhammad, he highlighted the significant role the media can play to bring down the number of tuberculosis cases in the country.
According to WHO, he informed that around 96 million people suffered from the disease in 2014 across the world while 1.3 million people died yearly and 95 percent deaths in underdeveloped countries. He said that mostly women from age 14 to 44 years among deaths from the disease.
Approximately, he added as many as one million children suffered from TB while 140,000 of them took last breathe in 2014, he added. He informed that about 50,000 patients have registered every year in KP. He added a total of 231 diagnosis and 810 treatment centers working under supervision of provincial TB Control Programme with facility of Directly Observe Treatment short course, have been established wherein free treatment of TB patients were conducted.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.