To mark the World TB Day, Sada Welfare Foundation organised a seminar on 'Tuberculosis and its Preventions' at National Institute of Child Health (NICH), here on Thursday. I.T Minister Sindh Raza Haroon was the chief guest. Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which was first discovered in 1882 by a German physician Robert Koch.
He received the Nobel Prize for his discovery. TB most commonly affects the lungs but can also involve almost any organ of the body. Many years ago, this disease was referred to as "consumption" because without effective treatment, these patients often would waste away. Today, of course, tuberculosis usually can be treated successfully with antibiotics, Dr Fawzia Siddiqui Chairperson of Sada Foundation in her presentation explains about TB and Sada Foundation's work towards its elimination.
A person can get infected with tuberculosis bacteria when he or she inhales minute particles of infected sputum from the air. The bacteria get into the air when someone who has a tuberculosis lung infection coughs, sneezes, shouts, or spits (which is common in our culture). People who are nearby can then possibly breathe the bacteria into their lungs. One shouldn't get TB just by touching the clothes or shaking the hands of a patient. Tuberculosis is transmitted primarily from person to person by breathing infected air during close contact, she further said.
TB prevention and control takes two parallel approaches. In the first approach, people with TB and their contacts are identified and then treated. Identification of infections often involves testing high-risk groups for TB. In the second approach, children are vaccinated to protect them from TB. No vaccine is available that provides reliable protection for adults.
Total T.B patients adopted by Sada Welfare Foundation from 2001 are 4,880. Whereas successfully treated patients from the foundation are 3,800. Almost 500 to 800 child patients are annually registered in the Sada Welfare Foundation, Dr Fawzia concludes.
Pakistan ranks eighth on the list of 22 high-burden tuberculosis (TB) countries in the world, according to the World Health Organisation's (WHO's) Global Tuberculosis Control 2009. According to an estimate in 2007 around 297,108 people in Pakistan developed TB, Dr Furqan In charge Blood Bank and Laboratory of NICH said.
The Ministry of Health began implementing DOTS programme in 1995, with Balochistan selected as a pilot province. Much progress has been made over the past five years. The case detection rate for Pakistan rose from 13 percent in 2002 to 67 percent in 2007, close to WHO's target of 70 percent. The proportion of patients defaulting has decreased steadily over the past six years, from 17 percent in 2000 to 6 percent in 2006. The DOTS treatment success rate has improved from 79 to 88 percent between the 2003 and the 2006 cohort. The government declared TB a national emergency, progress has been steady, with support from USAID and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Prof Dr Jamal Raza Director NICH said.
"At present 1,080 children are under treatment in Sada Foundation and 4,880 child patients had been treated in the past. It is not only the government's duty to fight for the elimination of this TB which is considered a silent killer but it is also moral duty of every citizen to join hands for the elimination of this disease. I'll on behalf of the government assure you that it will do its best to eliminate this disease. I hope next year when I'll come to attend this seminar on TB Day there will be not be any patients in the country," Raza Haroon Provincial Minister for I.T. said.
Sada Welfare Foundation in collaboration with Thespianz Theater headed by Faisal Malik presented a play 'Careful about T.B' to create awareness about prevention and control of T.B among children in the country. After the play gift hampers were distributed among the children.
The participants mainly comprised of children with TB and their parents, MNA Khushbakhat Shujat, Fatima Suriya Bajya, doctors, members from all walks of society, trustees, US alumni members along with US consulate were also present. Another programme to aware people about TB was also held in City District Government Karachi (CDGK) here on Thursday.
The objective of the programme was to know the exact figures of the patients in the city union council wise and to make a strategy to start a city wise fight against this silent killer. It is the goal of CDGK to achieve universal access to proper care for people suffering from TB and reduce the suffering and socio-economic burden associated with it. MQM will try to reduce prevalence and deaths due to TB by 50 percent compared with a baseline of 1990, Dr Nasir Javed EDO Health said.
Karachi has 18 million of population and it is divided into 18 towns. DOTS programme has been started in Sindh in August 2000 and it was implemented in the districts by December 2003. In Karachi DOTS training was started in March 2002 with the collaboration of Provincial TB control Programme. Presently, 60 diagnostic centers and 95 treatment centers of TB including private are working effectively in Karachi.
CDGK has its own TB control programme for the district and constituted TB Control Board under the head of City Nazim, EDO Dr Nasir Javed concludes.