Health experts have observed that lack of proper monitoring on the directly observed treatment programme of tuberculosis multi-drug-resistant TB is spreading in the country.
They have advised the government to strictly monitor the programme as tuberculosis MDR TB could be checked by only checking. Many times the patients do not care about taking antibiotic drug regularly and the health workers dedicated to feeding the patients the drug every day going home of the patients do not do their job regularly, they have said.
They were speaking at a roundtable organised by the National Tuberculosis Control Programme of the Directorate General of Health Services, daily Sangbad and BRAC at BRAC Centre Inn in the capital.
‘MDR TB is spreading in the country because of the negligence of healthcare providers,’ Shamim Sultana, deputy programme manager of the National Tuberculosis Control Programme, said.
The national survey report shows that at present 4200 MDR patients are in the country and of them 1.4 per cent got infected by another MDR TB patient.
‘The MDR TB patients who did not complete taking drug of normal TB disease are the main burden of the country,’ said Ashek Hossain, line director of the National TB Control Programme. ‘So we have to focus on the proper treatment of those patients.’
Data shows that the country has already detected five extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR TB), which is a rare type of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
The health experts said if these MDR TB patients were left unmonitored, XDR patients would increase in the country.
Rashid-e-Mahbub, former Bangladesh Medical Association president, said the TB treatment is a long process.
‘As TB prevalence is mainly high among the poor people, the researcher of the developed country are not willing to invest more in TB research.’
TB drugs and treatment protocol did not change over the decades, he said.
The experts emphasised early detection, rapid start of treatments and effective treatment to check the disease.
Among others DGHS director general Khandaker M Shifayetullah and daily Sangbad acting editor Khondoker Muniruzzaman were present among others.
-With New Age input
