TB control, care a collective responsibility

Islamabad: Tuberculosis poses a significant development and health challenge to Pakistani society with the World Health Organisation (WHO) putting the disease’s prevalence in the country at around 630,000 a year, one of the highest in the world, according to National Manager of the National TB Control Programme Dr Ejaz Qadeer.

Dr Ejaz Qadeer told this scribe on Sunday that Pakistan along with China, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia shouldered more than half of the total TB burden of the world.

“This indeed is not an appreciable situation. We at National TB Control Programme and partners consider the current scale and scope of TB control and care efforts in the country as critical and intense,” he said.

The NTCP national manager said the data coming from provinces indicated that some regions e.g. Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Balochistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas have shown very low notification rates but others had sustained good notification rates and treatment outcome.

He said the partnership created around TB control and care in Pakistan had grown consistently in recent years.Dr Ejaz Qadeer said financing partners including government, Global Fund and USAID had shown faith and confidence in the programme and its provincial counterparts in post-devolution regime.

“Despite the challenges created by the decentralisation of the health ministry, the NTCP has focused on further strengthening provincial capacity on programme management and implementation. Yet surveillance and monitoring and evaluation systems have also been augmented simultaneously. During the post-devolution context, implementing partners have also exhibited remarkable team spirit and stood by the programme. Expansion in MDR-TB is yet another area, where public and private sector implementing partners’ collaboration has been exemplary,” he said.

The NTCP national manager said despite the resilience of the programme and its partners, programmatic challenges remained critical and strategic in nature. He said static notifications urged proactive work on partnership strengthening with public and private health sectors through PPM; continued expansion of MDR-TB care; further investment in strengthening capacity of provinces; ensuring quality of existing services particularly laboratory network and to financially sustain these interventions, sustaining a strategic coordination with Global Fund and other donors.

“Challenges are many, diverse and complicated yet not impossible to deal with. Our team is amazing, hardworking and passionate about its work; partners are confident of our steady progress and the government ever more committed to fighting TB resiliently,” he said.Dr Ejaz Qadeer said he believed TB control and care was a collective responsibility and entailed collective benefit.