To commemorate World TB Day 2014, National TB Control Program Islamabad organized a National Seminar with Stakeholders at Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) in Islamabad. TB patients, their families, health care/service providers, volunteers from Pakistan Girls Guide Association & Pakistan Boy Scouts, local community elders/members, representatives of donor agencies, INGOs, NGOs and officials from vertical programs participated in this seminar.
Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, Saira Afzal Tarar, speaking as the chief guest on the occasion, said that Pakistan ranks 5th in the countries with highest incidence of TB in the world. TB remains a cause of serious concern and carries a social stigma, which is a major obstacle in its treatment. TB is a curable disease and the celebration of Word TB Day urges actions to control TB which kills thousands of people worldwide.
The minister further added that the Government of Pakistan is making concentrated efforts to control TB. More than 1.5 million patients have been diagnosed and treated free of cost with quality assured anti-TB drugs in both public and private sectors across the country through a network of 4,000 treatment centres. Multi-Drug Resistant TB (MDR) is also a big challenge and government is providing specialized treatment to 1.3 million MDR TB patients.
There is a lack of awareness and illiteracy which prevails in most of the areas in Pakistan. The key to controlling TB is to raise awareness about its symptoms and encourage patients to seek treatment which is available free of cost. It must be ensured that patients follow full course of medication for the prescribed period. She stressed that public education and building awareness can help prevent spread of the disease. There is need to disseminate information regarding TB to help save lives of thousands of people who die of the disease every year. She appreciated the efforts of National TB Control Program, USAID and Global Fund in the fight against TB.
Noting the doubling of the prevalence rate since the last Survey in 1987, Nany Estes, Acting Mission Director, USAID Pakistan said that “Prevalence at this level signifies that all of our combined efforts must be doubled, strategically and comprehensively implemented to effectively combat TB in Pakistan.”
Jonathan Ross, Director Health at USAID Pakistan said that TB is a curable disease but unfortunately people are afraid of it. There is dire need to make people aware that TB treatment is available free of cost across the country.
Dr. Werner Buehler, Senior Fund Portfolio Manager of Global Fund (GF) informed that the Global Fund is an international financing institution that fights AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria with a 21st century approach which includes partnership, transparency, constant learning and results-based funding. It was established in 2002 to dramatically increase resources for the fight against the three pandemics. GF encourages stakeholders and partners to be efficient and effective to achieve the goal of eradication TB in Pakistan.The Global Fund is working to reduce the Burden of Tuberculosis in Pakistan by improving access to Quality DOTS and MDR-TB Care Services.
Dr. G. N. Kazi in his address informed the participants that TB is still prevailing in the country and all of us have to work hard for its elimination And that every TB patient is important.
Earlier, Dr. Ejaz Qadeer, National Program Manager, NTP in his welcome address informed that NTP’s strategy is to control and eliminate TB from Pakistan. NTP started DOTS strategy in 2000 and by the support of Global Fund, the strategy has been implemented throughout Pakistan in all the public health facilities. NTP has also provided all the facilities for the treatment of TB patients and that is why 65% of the case detection has been carried out in 5 years through 100% public private sector coverage.
TB is a universal global challenge since all the countries which are high burden are missing one-third of their TB cases. The new strategy will help detect these missing cases of TB. Dr. Ejaz stressed that all provincial partners, stakeholders and the people working in the fight against TB should double their efforts.
He informed that the vision of National TB Control Program in the coming 6 years is to develop a strategy to reach zero TB deaths in Pakistan. The idea behind this strategy is that TB services must reach every patient in Pakistan. NTP has the infrastructure to build universal access of TB care in Pakistan. Special emphasis is being laid on the diagnosis and treatment of children with TB. Information technology is also being used increasingly in the program and an e-surveillance system is ensuring the availability of case based online data of TB patients from all the basic management units to district, provincial and federal levels.