WHO Mission Delegation Visits Punjab TB Control Program Offices

A World Health Organisation (WHO) Mission delegation, headed by Ms Philippa Easterbrook from Geneva, along with local representatives, visited the Offices of Punjab TB Control Program (PTP), here on Monday.

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Nov, 2018 ) :A World Health Organisation (WHO) Mission delegation, headed by Ms Philippa Easterbrook from Geneva, along with local representatives, visited the Offices of Punjab TB Control Program (PTP), here on Monday.

During the meeting, Provincial Director PTP Dr Zarfishan Tahir and her team briefed the delegation about the steps being taken to for control the disease, and provision of diagnostics and treatment facilities for the TB patients in the province.

National Programme Officer (NPO) for HIV/Hepatitis Dr Safder Pasha, WHO Lahore representative Dr Irfan, Additional Director PTP Dr Asif, Partnership Operation Manager Zubair Ahmed Shad, Dr Javeria and other officials attended the meeting.

Dr Zarfishan Tahir informed the WHO Mission that services of Lady Health Workers (LHWs) were also hired for searching the missing tuberculosis patients.

During their routine door-to-door visits, the LHWs also observed any family member living with fever or cough for a couple of weeks and took sputum samples of such suspected TB patient and sent them to the quarters concerned fortests, she added.

Dr Zarfishan said that the strategy proved very successful for tracing the missing TB patients.

She said that Punjab TB Control Program had established Bio-safety Level-III Laboratory (BSL-III) for all complicated tests of TB patients.

Moreover, HIV/AIDS tests are also being conducted for which Punjab AIDS Control Program has provided kits and so far more than 80,000 registered TB patients have gone through these tests.

She said that as per directions of the provincial government, all the diagnostic and treatment facilities were being provided to all TB patients including Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) patients free-of-cost.

She disclosed that treatment of MDR patients was very costly and up to one million rupees might be needed for one such patient's treatment.

She said that Gene Expert Machines had also been provided at the Health Facilities. She said that PTP was very successfully being run due to that unregistered and missing TB patients were being registered. She said that more than two lakh new TB patients were reported annually.

WHO Mission delegation appreciated the setting up of BSL-III, Laboratory and lauded the services of LHWs for searching missing TB patients.

The WHO Mission stressed the need for integrated program and efforts for diagnoses of different diseases like hepatitis, HIV virus etc.