PESHAWAR
The provincial health department in collaboration with the TB control program Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Khyber Medical University (KMU) on Saturday organized an event to mark World TB day. The event was held at the multipurpose hall of the KMU Peshawar.
Former Director General Health Services KP Dr Ayub Roze, Additional Inspector General Prison Rehan Gul Khattak, Director KMU Institute of Public Health & Social Sciences Dr Saima Afaq, Director Mother and Child Health Program Dr Sahib Gul, Additional Director General Health Services KP Dr Obaidullah, Representative of Mercy Corps Ms Lubna Javed, World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Babar Alam, National Coordinator of National TB Control Program Dr Abdul Wali and Director Provincial TB Control Program Dr Mudassar Shehzad spoke in the event.
Speakers on the occasion shared that TB is a treatable disease and if a person has a cough and fever for more than two weeks, he or she should go to the nearest TB center and get tested.
They said that one TB patient can affect 10 to 15 healthy people, so creating TB awareness is a shared national cause of government agencies as well as all citizens.
The experts said that TB should not be considered as a stigma but it should be treated as a disease and attention should be paid to its treatment and prevention measures should be adopted.
TB is a contagious disease and it is possible to control it but we all have to work together for this common national cause, adding that hope that the valuable services rendered by KMU on various fronts in tackling various diseases so far hope that its administration; faculty and students will work with the same passion and enthusiasm in tackling TB.
Dr Mudassir Shehzad, Director, Provincial TB Control Program KP, while describing the status and statistics of TB in the country, said that Pakistan ranks fifth in the world in terms of TB patients.
He said that 5, 50,000 people are infected with TB in Pakistan every year while 259 out of 100,000 people get infected with TB. He said that the TB control program KP has treated more than 65000 patients since 2002.
Resistance to TB is a great challenge for the whole society while the provincial TB control program has provided free treatment to 2800 patients since 2012, Dr Mudassar Shehzad added.
He said that there were laboratories for TB diagnosis in the province which would soon be extended to all the districts of the province, adding that treatment of a resistant TB patient costs an average of Rs 1 million while the provincial TB control program is providing all the treatment facilities to the patients absolutely free of cost.
