PESHAWAR: Health experts at a seminar expressed concerns over the rising incidences of tuberculosis in the country and calledupon people to adopt preventive measures to stay safe from the ailment.

The seminar was held at Khyber Medical University on Monday to mark World TB Day.

`Pakistan has been ranked fifth in TB burdened countries globally and approximately 277 of every 100,000 Pakistanis enter TB club each year,` said Dr Muddassar Shahzad, the project director of TB Control Programme. He said that 600,000 to 700,000 new TB cases were reported annually in the country while 470,000 cases were recorded last year alone.

He said that more than 100,000 new cases emerged annually in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and only 50,000 to 60,000 of them were registered under TB Control Program. He said that unregistered patients could spread the infection.

Dr Muddassar stressed the needed for creating awareness among people to undergo tests in case of symptoms so that the disease could be prevented from snowballing into major public health issue.

The adviser to chief minister on health, Ihtesham Ali, was chief guest on the occasion. He said that government has established 235 basic management units in public sector hospitals to offer free diagnosis, treatment, consultation and counseling to TB patients.

He said that 1,450 general practitioners from private sector were integrated into TB care network, significantly improving case detection and preventing hidden transmissions.

Mr Ali said that the program successfully provided free treatment to more than 800,000 TB patients so far and focused interventions were under way to reduce the spread of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB as its treatment was difficult.

He said that KP was reporting an estimated 2,100 MDR TB cases annually and more than 4,000 of them had already received free and specialised care.

He also shed light on the high cost of managing MDR TB, noting that treating one patient for more than 18 months could cost up to Rs1 million.

The event was also attended by MPA Shafiullah Khan, World Health Organisation provincial chief Dr Babar Alam and representatives of various internationalorganisations.