'Early detection can help eradicate disease' WHO

yinka ogunlami

March 22, 2016 10:57 AM

Ahead of the World Tuberculosis Day, which is on March 24, 2016, Poonam Khetrapal Singh emphasized on the need to reach out to communities for Tuberculosis detection.

Ahead of the World Tuberculosis Day, which is on March 24, 2016, Poonam Khetrapal Singh, South-East Asia Regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) emphasized on the need to reach out to communities for Tuberculosis detection.

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"To end TB, there is a need to reach out to and engage with communities directly for case detection, treatment completion and addressing out-of-pocket expenditures.

"Forging partnerships with civil society groups and between public and private care providers will likewise ensure that present gaps are closed and that a society-wide movement to end TB develops," Singh said.

Further stating that Tuberculosis is the disease of the poor and the marginalised.

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"Addressing poverty and other determinants will have a dramatic effect on the disease's burden. Policies in this regard could include increasing access to safe housing and providing viable social security among other options.

"TB isn't only a health problem. Therefore, its solutions must also encompass the full range of multi-sectoral dimensions and multi-stakeholder engagement. It is one of those diseases that require health in all policies, coupled with strengthening the full spectrum of human rights that guarantee a TB patient the right to the best treatment possible," she said.

Singh urged the government to be committed in fighting Tuberculosis.

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"Also, political commitment at the highest level must be reinforced. The mission-like zeal with which polio and HIV/AIDS have been fought must be reproduced in the battle against TB and must lead to organisational and programming shifts," she said.

yinka ogunlami

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