EDITORIAL: The statistics about the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) are startlingly worrisome. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), every year 10 million people fall ill with this highly infectious disease and 1.5 million die from it each year, making TB the leading cause of death of people along with HIV, and a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance.
Most of those infected with the microbe live in low and middle income countries, including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
Although it finds little mention in our health authorities’ public conversations, except on the World TB Day annually observed on March 24, Pakistan ranks 5th among the 30 high burden TB countries. Over 400,000 new cases, including 27,000 drug-resistant ones, are reported every year.
In what looked like a routine message marking this year’s World Day, Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel said political and social commitment ‘might’ be mobilised in order to accelerate efforts to reduce the burden of tuberculosis, adding “we all firmly believe that if we want to advance towards a world where there are zero TB deaths, no one should be left behind in the fight against TB.” The words ‘might’ and ‘if’ betray a lack of resolve to eliminate the disease through effective prevention and treatment measures.
However, a while ago provincial governments took an important step in that direction by introducing mandatory notification of TB cases, though implementation is believed to fall short. It is a curable disease, but as the WHO notes that requires strictly following a 6-month — or even longer — drug regimen provided to patients with support and supervision.
Many patients tend to abandon treatment too early. The world health agency also points out that use of poor quality medicines or bad storage conditions — the twin issues are quite common in this country — can cause drug resistance, which can then be transmitted, especially in crowded settings, such as prisons and hospitals.
The federal health ministry has vowed to end the disease in Pakistan by 2030. Achievement of that target calls for a proactive policy. First of all is the need to improve detection and treatment facilities. Second, to start a sustained awareness drive to inform people about preventive measures and also that stopping treatment prematurely can make TB drug resistant.
And third, the drug regulatory authorities and medical experts ought to ensure the medicines are up to the required standard. Lastly, the provincial health departments should make arrangements for providing free of cost medicines to poor patients. Only an all-out effort will help banish this deadly disease from this country.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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