Tuberculosis in Pakistan.

Byline: HADIA AZIZ - Islamabad

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading infectious cause of death worldwide. Pakistan ranks sixth globally among the 22 high TB burden countries and contributes an estimates 43 percent of the disease towards the Eastern Mediterranean region of the world health organization. Annually, around 430,000 people including 15,000 children contract TB in Pakistan while not less than 70,000 deaths every year can be attributed to the disease in the country. Pakistan is also estimated to have the fourth highest prevalence of multi drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) globally. Over 95 percent of TB deaths occur in low and middle-income countries.

TB is a disease of poverty and poor, malnourished, diabetic patients using corticosteroid drugs, drug addicts, smokers, elderly, HIV infected patients, alcoholic and people living in overcrowding institution like prison. A large number of people infected with the TB bacilli is not diagnose either because of poverty or because of lack of awareness about the seriousness of the disease. The delay in...