World TB Day 2002 - In the News

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Headline: Free chest X-rays to detect TB
Date: March 23, 2002 Saturday

SINGAPOREANS and permanent residents aged over 45 can have a free chest X-ray today as part of a drive to stamp out tuberculosis (TB).

The Singapore Anti-Tuberculosis Association is offering the free screening at its four clinics in Bedok, Jurong, Kreta Ayer and Woodlands, to mark World TB Day, which falls tomorrow, and the organisation's 55th anniversary.

TB - the oldest disease known to mankind - is a bacterial disease that most commonly affects the lungs, although it can also infect the neck bones and kidneys. Last year, there were nearly 1,500 newly-diagnosed cases of the disease here.

The incidence of TB in Singapore, at 43 per 100,000 people, is high compared to other developed countries. In the United States, Australia and Sweden, the figure is below 10 per 100,000, and in Japan, it is 33 per 100,000.

Patients failing to complete their treatment is one reason for the high rates here, because this leads to drug-resistant strains of the disease, an association spokesman told The Straits Times.

The disease is also common in Aids patients, she added.

However, TB accounts for less than 1 per cent of all deaths in Singapore, which is why the community 'treats the disease with disregard', the association said in a statement.

Last year, the association carried out almost 22,000 X-rays in a bid to detect the disease.

The spokesman said she hoped for a big public response to the free chest X-rays today.

There will be exhibitions about TB at the four clinics: 351, Chai Chee Street; 17, Kreta Ayer Road; Block 135, Jurong East Street 13, unit 04-345; and Woodlands Civic Centre, Block 900, South Woodlands Drive, unit 04-01.

World TB Day was started on March 24, 1982, to raise public awareness of the world's biggest killer so that more could be done to fight it.

The declaration of an awareness day came 100 years after Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacteria that causes TB.

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