Health officials have called upon the mass media for creating public awareness in detecting and bringing all tuberculosis patients under cost- free treatment facilities to make the country free from the disease.
The call was made at a views-sharing meeting with journalists on ‘Role of Media in Preventing Tuberculosis’ organised by the National Anti-Tuberculosis Association of Bangladesh (NATAB) at Panchagarh Press Club in Panchagarh district town.
With President of Panchagarh Press Club A Rahman Mukul in the chair, Sadar Upazila Health and Family Planning Officer Dr Baharam Ali attended the meeting as the chief guest.
Rangpur Divisional Organiser of NATAB Kaiser Uddin, General Secretary of Panchagarh Press Club Shafikul Alam and its Member Shahidul Islam Shahid addressed the meeting, among others.
A large number of working journalists from the print, electronic and online
media attended the meeting moderated by Member of Panchagarh district unit of
NATAB Shamsuddin Chowdhury Kalam.
In his speech, Kaiser Uddin narrated about the achievement and government
strategies for eradicating tuberculosis and successes achieved so far towards
the directions at the district, regional and national level.
He also discussed about the government efforts for detecting tuberculosis
patients and bringing them under cost-free Direct Observation Treatment Short
course (DOTS) programme at village, ward, union, upazila and district levels.
The Chief guest narrated symptoms of tuberculosis infection and timely
cough test for its detection and added that 70 percent of the tuberculosis
patients have been detected so far and brought under treatment.
He said 30 percent of the remaining Smear Negative, Extra Pulmonary and
Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) TB patients are yet to be detected in the country.
He also explained severity of the MDR, extremely drug resistant (XDR) and
micro-bacterial (MT) tuberculosis and examination process of sputum using the
computerized GeneXpert Machine.
He also called upon the media workers for playing their more effective role
to focus on the necessity of detecting and eradicating tuberculosis from the
country through creating adequate social awareness.
