Photo: IRIN

Patients line up for consultations at a TB centre

KARACHI, 28 June 2009 (IRIN) - A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between Pakistan’s National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTP) and the Karachi-based Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases (OICD) to provide better services to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) patients.

The MoU was signed on 27 June in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and where OICD is located, in the first public private mix (PPM) steering committee meeting between NTP and OICD. It stated that NTP would provide funds for the diagnosis of MDR-TB and medicines while Ojha Institute would be responsible for providing medical expertise, nursing care and other logistics issues.

Some 148 MDR TB patients are currently being treated at the Ojha Institute.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), MDR-TB is a specific form of TB that is resistant to isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most powerful anti-TB drugs.

OICD director Iftikhar Ahmed said that about 300,000 people suffer from TB annually in Pakistan while 62,000 die every year. He said that a lot more needs to be done with regards to controlling the spread of TB. “While the implementation of the DOTS [Directly Observed Therapy Short-Course] strategy is important, it is also a must that we take relevant professional organisations on board to improve coordination so that the TB/HIV co-infection can also be dealt with properly,” Ahmed said.

According to WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Control Report 2009, 3.2 percent (about 9,500 patients) of all new cases of TB in Pakistan were MDR, while the rate of MDR-TB among previously treated TB cases was 35 percent.

There were an estimated 25,475 MDR-TB cases in WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region in 2006, with almost 60 percent of these cases estimated to be in Pakistan, according to the Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance in the World Report No 4 by WHO.

Ismat Ara, TB control program director in Sindh Province, said about 100,000 new cases of TB are reported every year in Sindh. “In 2008, 1.9 percent of new cases were MDR-TB while 26 percent of old known cases have developed into MDR due to lack of awareness, poor diagnostics facilities and incomplete treatment,” Ara explained.

sj/at/ed