E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, MAR 24 -

Lack of awareness is the biggest challenge in tuberculosis (TB) case detection and work towards the elimination of the disease by 2050 as called by the World Health Organization (WHO) experts say.

Nepal marks the World TB Day on Thursday amid  various programmes. WHO estimates that one-third of the world’s population is infected with TB and 1.3 million people die of it each year.

“We have met the 2005 global target set by the WHO—detecting 70 percent cases and curing 85 percent patients. Now, we have the challenge of meeting another target of minimising the number of TB patients before eliminating the disease by 2050,” said Dr Sarad Chandra Varma, deputy director of National TB Centre.

The government has worked closely with partners in combating the disease for the last several decades. It was not until 1996 that things started to work well. Nepal, then, became one of the first countries in Asia to introduce the Directly Observed Treatment Strategy. DOTS is available in 4,220 health institutions across the country. As a result, Nepal was able to reduce morality rate from 20,000 in 1990 to 5,000 to 7,000 in 2011. Nepal was able to detect 76 percent of the cases and cure over 90 percent of detected patients. In the fiscal year 2009/2010 alone, 34,407 TB patients were recorded in various treatment centres and 90 percent of them were successfully cured, achieving higher than WHO standard.

Experts, however, are concerned about the newer challenge of patients not coming to centres despite the free treatment available there. As HIV-TV co-infection, an estimated 45,000 people contract TB each year.

TB patients of Multiple Drug Resistant and Extensively Drug Resistant types cannot go in isolation wards because there are none.

Posted on: 2011-03-24 11:20

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