Addressing a seminar in connection with World TB world Day here, the minister said that despite challenges, significant efforts have been made by the federal government with the support of the provincial governments to stop TB in the last few years. She said TB Control Program is one of the best performing public health programs in the country.
She added free TB diagnostic and treatment services are available in more than 1700 public and private sector facilities across Pakistan.
She said that in 2016, around 69% of the estimated incident TB cases were notified and put on treatment while more than 90% of the TB patients notified were successfully treated. She said that more than 120 advanced diagnostic facilities and 32 specialized treatment facilities have been established across the country for free of cost early diagnosis and treatment for Multi-Drug Resistance (MDR) TB patients. She added in 2016 alone, 366,000 TB cases were notified and enrolled on treatment.
The minister said “We have a strong cooperation and partnership with the private sector and today more than 3500 general practitioners, 125 NGOs’ health centres, 2,000 pharmacies, 35 private hospitals and 45 para-statal hospitals in 88 districts are engaged in TB control.
She said that private sector is contributing towards 28 percent of total TB case notification in the country. “We are working closely with Pakistan Pediatric Association to control childhood TB in the country.”
She said that cognizant of the risk of TB-HIV co-infection, 40 sentinel sites have been established for screening and early diagnosis of TB-HIV co-infection in geographical areas having documented concentrated HIV epidemics.
The minister said that for MDR TB Pakistan has treatment success rate of 65 percent which is higher than average global success rate.
It was in this context that in 2016 Pakistan was recognized with TB Champion Award.
She said that major strides have been made in improving access and quality of TB care. However there is more work to be done as factors such as malnutrition, poor housing and sanitation, compounded by other risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol use and diabetes contribute to the problem.
She expressed the hope that by hosting a high level regional conference on TB in May this year and meeting of country’s health and population think tanks with national and international experts on Tuesday in the federal capital will deliberate the way forward in meeting remaining challenges in TB control.
She said that Pakistan is also signatory to the WHO Moscow declaration and agreed to end TB in the sustainable development era.
Manager National TB Control Program Dr Nasir explaining the current situation of TB and the current challenges said that missing TB cases was the biggest threat and stressed the need for Inter-sectoral collaboration to find these missing cases. “We cannot defeat the menace of this disease without the collaboration of all the sectors of the society like housing, food, environment, social welfare etc.”
Team Leader Dr. Jacob Creswell STOP TB Partnership and WHO Additional Director General Dr Minghui Ren shared the global and regional scenario of TB and the need of domestic funding to narrow the funding gap. Dr Ren said that about 10.4 million cases of TB occur each year all around the world while 1.8 million die from the disease.
He stressed on the importance of integration of HIV and TB services in order to better serve the needs of people. A declaration by all provincial managers of TB Control Program was signed at the seminar reiterating the commitments made by the minster at the Moscow conference in 2017.
By signing the declaration, they committed to advancing TB response in the SDG agenda, ensuring sustainable financing, pursuing research, and multi-sectorial collaborations to end TB.