TB elimination activities must pick up amid Covid
Tuberculosis (TB) elimination activities are being hampered due to Covid-19 emergencies, despite the contagious disease causing some 107 deaths every day in the country, speakers at a discussion said yesterday.
To address this public health issue, there is a need for immediate plan and response to accelerate the detection of TB in line with Covid-19, they said at the programme, held at the Brac Center in Dhaka.
It was jointly organised by the Brac TB programme and the National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) of the health ministry.
According to the Global TB Report 2020 of the World Health Organization, Bangladesh had around 2.93 lakh TB patients last year -- one of the top 30 countries in the world.
Last year, around 221 new patients were detected and 21 died per one lakh population, according to the global report.
Dr Rupali Shishir Banu, National Programme Coordinator of NTP presented the latest TB situation at the time of Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
In her presentation, she showed multiple similarities between symptoms of TB and Covid-19 -- cough, fever and difficulty in breathing.
Both diseases also attack primarily the lungs, and both biological agents transmit mainly via close contact, spread through droplet nuclei, cough, sneeze, shouting, or singing, and people who inhale them can get infected.
Besides, elderly people, and other comorbidities like diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) cause same risk in case of the both diseases.
The one difference between these diseases is that the incubation period from exposure to disease in TB is longer, often with a slow onset than Covid-19.
It is anticipated that people ill with both TB and Covid-19 may have poorer treatment outcomes, especially if TB treatment is interrupted.
"TB treatment should continue with Covid-19 infection," Dr Rupali Shishir Banu said in her presentation.
She said the implementation of training programmes, TB active case finding at community and outreach levels, and programme monitoring were badly hampered due to Covid-19.
Referring to a global study, she mentioned that a total of 987 new cases are adding to the total number of TB infected patients in the country every day, while 247 cases go missing.
TB is a highly contagious disease caused by a type of bacteria, which generally affects lungs. The disease's present curability is over 90 percent in Bangladesh.
In this context, the government should give more emphasis on TB detection and extend health services to poor and marginalised people, speakers said in the event.
Speaking as chief guest, Prof ABM Khurshid Alam, director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, said, "We have to increase the number of GeneXpert machines which will expand such services to the root level."
Prof Dr Shamiul Islam, line director of NTP, said, "The big challenge is detection of TB. If the detection rate is increased, the success of 96 percent curability could be continued."
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