By IANS,
Islamabad: Tuberculosis kills 68,000 people in Pakistan every year as an untreated patient transfers the disease to 10-15 people, a senior official said.
The country has 700,000 tuberculosis patients now, Hashim Raza Zaidi, the secretary of health, said at an event in Karachi on the occasion of World Tuberculosis Day Saturday.
Zaidi said that in Sindh province alone, 1,000 treatment centres and 272 diagnostic centres had been set up to provide free medicines.
A tuberculosis control programme has set up by the government in Sindh at a cost of Rs.213 million, the Daily Times reported.
Masood Hameed Khan, vice chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences, which conducted the programme, said negligence, carelessness and lack of awareness about tuberculosis leads to a very complicated form of the disease known as “Multi Drug Resistant-Tuberculosis”.
He said the university would soon start a web-based training programme for doctors treating tuberculosis patients.