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The Independent
March 25, 2003 Tuesday

EMEDIA-ACC-NO: 200303253404.m03
LENGTH: 657 words
HEADLINE: TB afflicts 3 lakh people every year

BODY:
Speakers at a seminar on "Tuberculosis in Bangladesh" said yesterday that more than 300,000 new TB cases are reported per year in Bangladesh and of them 70,000 die.

The seminar was held at the auditorium of the National Institute of Diseases of the Chest & Hospital (NIDCH) at Mohakhali. The Chest and Heart Association of Bangladesh (CHAB) and BRAC, an NGO, jointly organized the seminar in connection with the observance of World TB Day 2003.

The World TB Day 2003 was observed in Bangladesh as elsewhere around the globe yesterday. The theme for World TB Day 2003 is "People with TB" and the slogan is "DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course) cured me - it will cure you too!" This highlights the need to involve people with TB as advocates and active participants in TB control, said speakers at the seminar.

On an average three to four months of work time are lost as a result of TB; this results in average loss of potential earnings of 20 to 30 per cent of annual household income. A further loss of 15 years of income occurs to the families whose member dies of TB. About 75 per cent of TB infections and deaths occur in the 15 to 54 year age group, the most economically productive age group in the population. The GDP per capita may reduce upto one per cent every year because of TB.

The speakers said TB should be suspected when cough lasts for more than three weeks. They said TB could be cured if all prescribed drugs were taken for six to eight months. TB becomes drug resistant when treatment is not completed, cure is then very difficult.

The National TB Control Programme in Bangladesh aims to reduce the incidence of tuberculosis. The objective of the programme is to detect at least 70 per cent of the contagious TB cases and to cure at least 85 per cent of them. The DOTS Strategy is adopted as the highest cost-effective to achieve these objectives.

Planned activities for 2003 will emphasise mobilising TB patients and people who have been cured of TB-as well as those in the health sector- to advocate for government action, educate communities, and put a human face on TB to reduce social stigmas associated with the disease.

The DOTS strategy is the WHO recommended policy package of 5 components to control TB: commitment of the government, microscopy investigation, standardised treatment, uninterrupted supply of all anti-TB drugs and other supplies, and registration and reporting of TB patients to avoid defaulters and monitoring the programme performance.

The National TB Control Programme follows the DOTS strategy to improve poor or uncoordinated TB services. Free services are offered by the National TB Control Programme in all 460 upazilas and four metropolitan cities- Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi. The service is also available in 45 chest clinics throughout the country and four TB Hospitals- Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi and Sylhet. Under the National TB Control Programme 34 per cent of the estimated patients were detected in 2002. A total of 81,795 TB cases were reported under the programme in 2002 and 5,65,408 from 1993 to 2002. About 84 per cent of the patients were successfully treated in 2001.

The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH), established two years ago by the Director General of WHO, calls for scaling up health interventions to tackle diseases related to poverty, as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The UN targets are to halve the mortality of TB and malaria and reduce new HIV infections by 25 per cent by 2010.

Vice president of the CHAB Prof Emeritus M Nabi Alam Khan, Line Director of ESP Dr Md Abdul Baqi and Head of the department of Respiratory Medicine at NIDCH Prof Md Mostafizur Rahman were expert panellists at the seminar. President of CHAB Prof AKM Shamsul Huq was in the chair. Dr Jalaluddin Ahmed, Dr Asif Mujtaba Mahmud, Dr Md Akramul Islam, Dr Pankaj Kumar Das and Dr Adnan Yusuf Chowdhury presented papers.