56,000 Deaths Occur From TB Every Year In Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Sep, 2019 ) :As many as 160,000 Tuberculosis (TB) patients are missing the treatment and 56,000 deaths are occurred due to this disease in Pakistan every year.

An official of National TB Control Program told here Sunday, a total of 525,000 new TB cases are surfaced annually in Pakistan while the figure of cases under treatment is 368,589. He said that Pakistan ranks four among the countries with high incidents of multi-drug resistant TB as estimated 27,000 new cases are reported every year.

He said that 1571 microscopy centers have been working in the country and the successful treatment cases of TB treatment is 93 percent. He said that the government has paid special attention to this critical issue and strengthened the program for providing a free treatment to TB patients.

The official said that more than 300,000 TB patients are benefiting from free diagnostic and treatment facilities every year in Pakistan.

He said that more than 30 hospitals have been upgraded to take care of multi-drug resistant TB cases and 13 laboratories equipped with state of the art facilities are being established in various parts of the country.

He said that the government is committed to achieve the target of eliminating the disease from the country and has sought support of all stakeholders in this regard.

He said that every year, the World Tuberculosis Day is observed in Pakistan to raise public awareness about the devastating health, social and economic consequences and to step up efforts to end the disease epidemic.

He said that World TB Day marks the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes TB, which opened the way towards diagnosing and curing this disease.

He said that TB remains the world's deadliest infectious killer. Each day, nearly 4,500 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease, he added. He added to accelerate the TB response in countries to reach targets heads of states came together and made strong commitments to end TB at the first-ever UN High Level Meeting in September 2018. He said that global efforts to combat TB have saved an estimated 54 million lives since the year 2000 and reduced the TB mortality rate by 42 percent.

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