Regions told to boost TB eradication

Regions told to boost TB eradication

BANDUNG: Minister of Health Ahmad Sujudi asked regional
governments on Monday to step up the campaign against
tuberculosis (TB).

In his speech read by Director General of Communicable
Diseases and Environmental Health Umar Fahmi Ahmad, Sujudi urged
governments of provinces, regencies and mayoralties nation-wide
to immediately start their jobs under the integrated nation-wide
TB eradication move.

Under the program, the regional governments have to draw up
their respective program to eradicate the disease, which claims
140,000 lives in the country annually and places Indonesia just
behind India and China.

"The absence of political commitment, promotion and the
consistent remedy account for the failure to cope with the
disease in the country," Sujudi told a forum of regional
governments.

The disease can be healed if a patient takes anti-TB medicine
uninterruptedly in six months. The government has provided the
drug for free at community health centers.

The free medication has now covered between 10 percent and 20
percent of TB carriers but the government has set a target of
increasing the figure to 70 in 2005 in line with the World Health
Organization's request. -- Antara