Pakistan gets vital TB grant worth $26m: The News

By Shahina Maqbool
Islamabad

Pakistan has yet again won a vital grant worth $26 million for the control of Tuberculosis, with a special acknowledgement for the country’s health management on having achieved 100 per cent TB DOTS coverage and effective implementation of TB control strategies.

Executive Director of The Global Fund, Michel Kazatchkine and Pakistan’s Health Secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari signed two grant agreements for securing high-quality anti-TB drugs and strengthening of the TB Drug Management System in Pakistan through public-private partnership, in Geneva. A major portion of the grant will be utilised to secure 50 per cent of the total country need for anti-TB drugs through the Global Drug Facility, informed Dr. Noor Baloch, national manager of the TB Control Programme.

Agreements worth $8.9 million have been signed for phase-1 of the grant, covering the initial two years starting from July 2009, he added.

This is the fourth time that Pakistan has won a strictly performance-based global fund grant for TB from amongst numerous other competitors. This is a unique public-private partnership and both the National TB Control Programme and Greenstar Social Marketing Pakistan will be implementing this recent grant, as Principal Recipients.

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) is a performance-based funding mechanism established in 2002 to provide significant amounts of new resources to allow developing countries to quickly scale up treatment and prevention services aimed at stemming the spread of the diseases.

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Pakistan 8th among TB-hit countries: official: The News

By Our correspondent
TANK: With the highest burden of Tuberculosis (TB) patients, Pakistan is ranked 8th among the TB-hit countries across the globe.

The government, in line with its commitments to the International Standard of DOTs’ strategies, has taken adequate measures for elimination of the disease, stated Dr Riazuddin Mahsud, a senior health official, while talking to this scribe.

Dr Riazuddin, the district TB control officer, said TB cases in Pakistan were estimated to be 300,000 annually, most of them lungs problem. A statistical data reveals that 75 percent among the TB patients are youth troubled with worst economic constraints besides lack of awareness.

Efficient monitoring procedure on the part of local TB control units, about 100 TB cases were being registered in Tank quarterly, most of them suffering from lungs TB. However, Dr Riaz deplored that lack of awareness among the masses was also a problem to be solved.

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