Uganda launches new health programme to tackle TB infections
By DPA News, May 29, 2006
Kampala - The Ugandan government has launched a treatment and education programme to help stem the growth in tuberculosis (TB) infections, health officials confirmed Monday.
The project involves rolling out treatment and care programmes for the sick while educating the general population on how to avoid infection. It will run side by side with an existing campaign to control the spread of AIDS which Ugandan medical authorities believe is responsible for the rise in TB cases in the country.
'We have found it necessary to create an urgent programme to address the increasing numbers of TB infections as well as AIDS as the two epidemics are related. The programme includes comprehensive care for TB patients who in most cases also happen to have AIDS,' the acting director for health services, Dr Sam Okware said Monday.
According to the health ministry, Uganda is ranked 16th out of the 22 countries in the world which are worst affected with TB. Officials say that 30 per cent of the country's 27 million people carry the virus that causes the wasting disease and 10 per cent of these are projected to develop it.
The health ministry recorded 42,000 new cases of TB last year and the same number of new cases was registered in 2003. The number of new cases in 2002 was put at 41,000.
Uganda has lost over a million people to AIDS since the disease was identified in the country in 1982. Over 1.2 million of its people now carry the virus that causes the deadly disease.
Kampala - The Ugandan government has launched a treatment and education programme to help stem the growth in tuberculosis (TB) infections, health officials confirmed Monday.
The project involves rolling out treatment and care programmes for the sick while educating the general population on how to avoid infection. It will run side by side with an existing campaign to control the spread of AIDS which Ugandan medical authorities believe is responsible for the rise in TB cases in the country.
'We have found it necessary to create an urgent programme to address the increasing numbers of TB infections as well as AIDS as the two epidemics are related. The programme includes comprehensive care for TB patients who in most cases also happen to have AIDS,' the acting director for health services, Dr Sam Okware said Monday.
According to the health ministry, Uganda is ranked 16th out of the 22 countries in the world which are worst affected with TB. Officials say that 30 per cent of the country's 27 million people carry the virus that causes the wasting disease and 10 per cent of these are projected to develop it.
The health ministry recorded 42,000 new cases of TB last year and the same number of new cases was registered in 2003. The number of new cases in 2002 was put at 41,000.
Uganda has lost over a million people to AIDS since the disease was identified in the country in 1982. Over 1.2 million of its people now carry the virus that causes the deadly disease.
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 10:28 pm
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