Tuberculosis: Leading Cause of Death, Worldwide

KARACHI-  Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), organized an awareness program on ‘Tuberculosis’ (TB). The aim of this program was to create awareness amongst masses regarding the contiguous debilitating disease. Free checkups were also conducted at medical camps, held at SIUT centers.

Tuberculosis is considered as one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide.

In 2016, an estimated number of 10.4 million new cases were reported globally, with a mortality of 1.7 million. In Pakistan, during the year of 2016,  an estimated number of 518,000 patients were diagnosed with TB, with an incidence of 268/100,000 population.

 On this occasion, the SIUT chalked out an elaborate plan where TB experts of SIUT informed the visitors that Pakistan is included amongst seven countries accounted for 64% of all new cases in the global perspective. Furthermore, Pakistan is considered a high burden country for Multi-drug resistant TB.

While conducting the educational lecture about this disease, the experts pointed out that Tuberculosis is an airborne disease, and can be caught by breathing in the air that an infected person has contaminated, through breathing and, or coughing. Symptoms  include, lasting cough, fatigue, coughing up blood, chest pain, sweating at night, fever, loss of appetite, and weight loss. It can affect ANY organ of the body. It is extremely important to raise awareness regarding the signs & symptoms, spread, treatment modalities of this disease; and most importantly to highlight its preventive measures.

The program was organized under the auspices of Department of Infectious Diseases, SIUT, which focused on the communities where active cases were detected.  The program was held at three centers of SIUT including Primary Healthcare Center Kathore, Malir and SIUT Chalbani Medical Center of Sukkur, respectively.

The constituents of this program were, the availability of free medical checkups & consultations, dietary/nutritional advices, distribution of educational literature on TB, viewing of disease educational videos, exhibition of informative posters and banners, alongside interactive sessions between SIUT medical staff members with the audience.

The SIUT experts included Infectious diseases specialists Dr. Asma Nasim, Dr. Sunil Dodani and Dr. Zaheer-uddin Baber, Pulmonologist Dr. Masroor Afridi, Dietician, Ms. Kehkashan and other related medical staff.

A large number of people from all walks of life attended the event and highly benefitted from it.