Bangladesh at risk of MDR TB
Say experts
The country risks the spread of multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) as TB infected urban slum dwellers frequently change residence, said Major Dr M Lutfor Rahman, program consultant of Urban Primary Health Care Project, yesterday.
The TB bacilli become resistant when patients break treatment due to the frequent change of residence, he said.
Lutfor was addressing a press briefing organised by several government and non-government organisations, including National TB Control Programme (NTP) and Brac, in the city's Jatiya Press Club.
The country, alongside the world, observes World TB Day today with a slogan “Stop TB in my lifetime”, targeting to halve TB-related deaths and contamination by 2015, a part of the millennium development goal.
As TB, which can be cured with medication, slowly became a major health concern in the country, the government initiated NTP in 1965.
NTP adopted Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course (DOTS), a standardised multi-drug treatment therapy having a six to eight month treatment period, for rural areas in 1994 and urban areas in 2001.
MDR-TB is emerging as a major threat to the NTP, said Dr Mohammad Ashaque Hussain, line director, TB-Leprosy of Directorate General of Health Services, at the programme.
It takes longer to treat, around two years, and can be cured with second-line drugs, which are more expensive and have more side effects, he said.
Only four hospitals, one each in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Netrokona, provide MDR-TB treatment, he added.
Dr Ashaque said 1,500 people were diagnosed with MDR-TB from 2008 to 2011. However, World Health Organization says the number is 10,000.
Speakers at the programme said 155,568 people were diagnosed with TB in Bangladesh last year, ranking sixth among the world's 22 high-burden TB countries.
Brac Health Programme Associate Director Dr Mohammad Akramul Islam, Dr Aung Kyajaimang of Damien Foundation, NTP Programme Manager Dr Mohammad Nuruzzaman Huq and Dr Mirja Nizam Uddin of NTP attended the meeting.
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