JHENIDAH, Mar 16 (BSS): Md Sohel, 38, of Khajura village in Sadar upazila of the district, has been suffering from fever and cold for two months. He also lost his weight during the period. But local doctor was unable to diagnose the problem.
Later, Sohel, having consultation with his father, decided to go BRAC's Shasthya Shebikas, (SS), frontline community health workers. They (SS) collected the sputum of Sohel and sent that to local health complex where, the diagnosis said he contracted Tuberculosis (TB).
The concerned SS advised him to remain tension-free as medicines for the disease are available and assured him that he would be cured taking prescribed medicines regularly for six months.
Accordingly, Sohel took medicines free of cost from the SS under Directly Observed Treatment Short course (DOTS) system and he got cured in estimated time.
Tuberculosis or TB in short is curable and no longer a serious threat to the human life.
BRAC sources said there are around 7,400 TB patients in the district Jhenaidah. Of them, 1,247 were admitted tolocal hospitals and health complexes and the cure (success) rate is almost 92 per cent.
BRAC is working in Jhenaidah from 2004 along with the government. Besides, a total of 1,179 Shasthya Shebikas are working in the district.
Despite an encouraging progress, the global burden of TB remains enormous- 12 million people across the world are suffering from tuberculosis. In 2012, 8.6 million new cases were recorded (13% co-infected with HIV), of them 2.9 million were women (34%) and 0.53 million children.
About 40 per cent of the patients are from Southeast Asia. Socioeconomic condition is one of the reasons for high TB prevalence in the region. Since a good portion of the patients belong to women and children group, reporting of those TB patients are also done separately.
Bangladesh, being one of the South Asian countries, faces similar problems. In 2012, the TB incidence rate was 225, prevalence rate was 434, and mortality rate 45 in one 100,000 population. Among the new TB cases diagnosed, about 1.4% was new multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR) and about 28.5 % multi-drug resistant patients.
Currently, BRAC covers 297 sub-districts and seven city corporations with a total population of 92.9 million. In the area being covered there are 31 academic institutes, 41 prisons, 405 peripheral laboratories and 26 external quality assessment centers.
