World Tuberculosis Day on March 24

With the theme of childhood TB, 'World Tuberculosis Day-2012' is being observed here on March 24 like other parts of the world with a pledge to raise awareness about tuberculosis, which remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing deaths of several million people each year, mostly in developing countries.
To mark the day, different organisations will hold walks, seminars, symposiums and scientific sessions to highlight different aspects of TB. Health professionals told Business Recorder that TB was one of the major public health problems in Pakistan which harboured 63 percent of the TB burden in the Eastern Mediterranean Region of WHO. Approximately 420,000 new TB cases emerge every year and among those half are sputum smear positive.
It may be noted that in 1993, WHO declared TB a global emergency. Since then efforts have been made to expand partnerships and bring all stakeholders on board in order to control this disease more effectively. The government of Pakistan endorsed the Directly Observed Treatment, short course (DOTS) strategy, following WHO's declaration of TB, as a global emergency and adopted DOTS strategy in 1995.
The National TB Control Programme (NTP) was revived in 2001 and TB was declared a national emergency. The NTP is responsible for overall TB control activities in the country, ie policy guidelines, technical support, co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation, and research Health professionals maintained that risk factors for childhood TB must be addressed at a war footing level.
They said, "Parents and other house inmates who smoke must go for tobacco cessation and quit tobacco use as second-hand tobacco smoke puts their children at risk of TB. Malnutrition was reported as the biggest risk factor for childhood TB and it is necessary to ensure proper nutrition and food security for all children." They said over-crowding, lack of hygiene, no exclusive breastfeeding, type 1 diabetes and HIV were some of the other risk factors that increased chances for a child to develop active TB disease.
They called for putting in place infection control in healthcare settings. Proper cross-ventilation, cough hygiene, avoiding crowds in OPDs, wearing masks, proper waste hospital disposal etc were some of the measures recommended in this regard.
They further said TB was an infectious bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affected the lungs. It is transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease. In healthy people, infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis often causes no symptoms, since the person's immune system acts to "wall off" the bacteria. The symptoms of active TB of the lung are coughing, sometimes with sputum or blood, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats. Tuberculosis is treatable with a six-month course of antibiotics." They said TB resulted in a loss of about 20 million work days every year. "This causes a loss of about three billion rupees to the economy of the country," they added.