NEWS reports in national dailies on Tuesday said the number of tuberculosis cases in children is on the rise in the country and it has almost spilled over unnoticed during the last ten years. It has increased nearly four times the reports said quoting experts to have blamed lack of awareness at the poor community level in the first place for the phenomenal rise of the disease. They have also lamented lack of diagnosis and treatment facilities closer to slums and poor neighbourhood where the incidence is on the rise in young people suffering from malnutrition.
The figure of TB affected patients released by BRAC run TB Control Programme showed in 2014 at least 6,318 children were diagnosed having TB infection against 5,044 in the previous year. The number was 1,625 in 2005. Experts say that the number is increasing as most pediatricians are not trained in TB diagnosis and treatment while the number of specialized hospitals and availability of proper equipment for diagnosis and treatment are also lacking. Some other figures showed at least 224 people in every lakh are newly affected TB patients every year and at least 51 of them died last year from the disease.
The BRAC run study has in fact rang the alert bell to our government about the growing menace to public health coming from rising number of TB affected patients. It moreover rated TB along with HIV/AIDS as number one infectious killer disease and so it come on high priority to government health budget, with greater access of the poor to treatment and on top of it to create greater awareness at the community level. But as it appears the government is almost sitting in the dark without lining up low cost proper curative and preventive treatment to handle the threat.
TB is a global problem and thousands die because of drug resistant forms of TB with children, so a global response must be part of the local initiative. It must include better TB diagnosis and treatment system to be funded at the national level by the government. Experts have therefore suggested launching a vigorous programme with facilities down to the upazila level and the health directorate officials and physicians at local hospitals must vigorously implement it.
The NGOs, which receive huge annual fund from various donors’ sources, must also mobilize treatment resources to handle the menace now increasingly affecting the young people. They must know that the money that they are getting is for socio-economic development of the masses and the poor must have their right share that must include TB treatment at their doorsteps.
