WHO Anti-Tuberculosis Project Slows Infection Rate
Thursday, 2 August, 2007
WHO Anti-Tuberculosis Project Slows Infection Rate
Thursday, 2 August, 2007
Testing equipment that helps doctors give an early diagnosis of tuberculosis has been installed in the Vanch district of the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region, according to Aziya Plus news agency reports last week.
The medical apparatus was introduced as part of WHO’s Directly Observed Treatment Strategy, DOTS, which was launched in Tajikistan in 2002 and is a fundamental part of the state programme to fight tuberculosis until 2010.
Safar Saifiddinov, head of the medical services organisation at the healthcare ministry, has told NBCentralAsia that the programme has helped examine and treat more people with suspected tuberculosis because all services are free of charge.
Access to the new testing equipment will be available across the entire country by the end of the year.
Two million people die from tuberculosis worldwide every year. According to the state centre for fighting tuberculosis, around 500 people in Tajikistan die from the infectious disease annually and there were 19,000 registered tuberculosis carriers in the country as of July 1. Tajikistan’s population is just over seven million.
NBCentralAsia experts say that DOTS has already helped to slow the spread of infection, but the state now needs to capitalise on that improvement by giving hospital patients and medical staff extra financial support.
Director of the state centre for fighting tuberculosis Sadullo Saidaliev says while DOTS has improved access to medicines and the reagents used in laboratories to test for the disease, the state must put more funding into hospital care.
Less than 30 US cents is spent on each patient per day, making it impossible to feed them the calorie-rich food essential for recovery.
“Tuberculosis patients need hearty meals rich in calories, they need to eat more than an ordinary healthy person,” said Saidaliev.
Tajikistan, which has a shortage of medical staff, is particularly lacking in trained tuberculosis specialists.
The average salary for hospital workers in a tuberculosis ward is 78 somoni a month, or around 22 dollars.
Tatiana Vinichenko, who manages the Health Opportunities for People Everywhere, HOPE, project to combat tuberculosis in Tajikistan, says that international organisations working in the field only fund disease monitoring and medicine and laboratory reagents purchases - they do not contribute to staff pay.
Late last year, the Tajik parliament adopted a law which doubled the wages of medical staff working to combat tuberculosis, set out patient rights and medical staff obligations. It is hoped it will bolster tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
