Additional Director TB Control Programme (TBCP) Sindh, Abdul Khaliq Domki has said there is an approximate figure of around 121,000 patients who are suffering from tuberculosis but do not prefer to go through its treatment. Such an act makes their disease more resistant infecting other healthy people in their surroundings.
Addressing at TB awareness seminar on World TB Day, organised by Dow University of Health Sciences at Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases, he said Pakistan TB Control Programme foresees that the number of TB patients is going to accelerate by 91 percent by 2020. Thus the vision to start this TB Control Programme is to decrease the number of people who have TB and are not going through proper treatment.
Within this period, the number of patients developing cancer through Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis will be minimized by at least 5 percent. Last year, there were 72 thousand TB patients who were cured in different hospitals of Sindh.
Abdul Khaliq Domki said Tuberculosis is not only a danger for the patient who are suffering but also for the society. TB is a contagious disease, thus, it has to be controlled. Our mission is to get rid of this contagious disease in Pakistan. We also have to focus upon controlling the deaths occurring from this devastating disease. Pro Vice Chancellor of Dow University, Professor Mohammad Masroor said every year 268 new types of cancers emerges per lac of population while there are 73 types of cancers that have already been discovered.
Similarly, there is 341 persistent TB patients rate every year. Despite of the provision of free TB treatment by the Government of Pakistan, people are ignoring this hazardous disease.
He further said the theme for this public awareness program on TB Day is to seek leaders for a TB free World and stop TB. A TB Leader is every person affected by or active in TB and willing to speak up and engage to end TB through their work and personal engagement. A TB patient's treatment can sum up to 6.5 to 10 lac rupees approximately. Last year, Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases and its OPDs at different constituent institutions have examined a figure of 114036 TB patients out of which 41036 were the cases of new cancers. During this time period, 3500 patients were admitted in the hospital.