Medication too pricey for 50% of TB sufferers

JAKARTA (JP): About 50 percent of the 500,000 Indonesians taking medication for their tuberculosis (TB) stop half-way through the course of treatment because they are too poor to continue it, a health activist said yesterday.

Chairwoman of the Indonesian Foundation for Tuberculosis Eradication Mrs. Soepardjo Rustam said that the price of the second round of medication is more expensive than the first.

TB can be cured within six months, she said, but many sufferers who undergo medical treatment fail to complete the entire process; some because they are too poor, others because they think they have already recovered the moment they stop coughing.

"Consequently, they have to repeat the medication," she said after meeting with President Soeharto.

Community health centers can ask for free TB medicine from the association for poor patients," Mrs. Soepardjo, wife of the late coordinating minister for people's welfare, said.

According to her, TB bacteria can be found everywhere and people who are physically or mentally tired are particularly prone to contracting the disease.

She said her foundation offers Rp 80,000 (US$34) in transport costs to all TB patient who are too poor to go to the nearest health center for further medication.

She said that there are currently about 500,000 Indonesians suffering from contagious TB and guessed that there are about 500,000 others who have not reported their illness.

In 1993 the World Health Organization estimated that 1.9 billion people, or one in every three worldwide, are infected with the disease. In the next decade, 300 million more people will become infected, 90 million people will develop the disease, and 30 million people will die of it, according to the organization's research. (ste)