Tuberculosis kills 7,000 annually

Bhaktapur / Jan 20: The National Tuberculosis Centre (NTC) Bhaktapur has revealed that around 35,000 new patients of tuberculosis have been detected every year.

At a two-day-long workshop on TB organized in Nagarkot, Director of NTC Dr Kedarnarsingh KC said around 10,000 to 12,000 patients are still out of contact.

He said that a total of 120 new TB patients have been traced every day while maximum of 7,000 TB patients succumb to TB every year. The NTC said that some 45 per cent of the country’s population is at risk of TB prevalence.

The NTC estimates that the number of multi-drug resistant TB patients is around 1,100 and only 352 of them are in contact. Likewise, the NTC said that over 4,000 DOTS centres are in operation in the country meant for free treatment of the patients.

The NTC has also begun a national survey under the national five-year strategic plan to confirm the exact number of the TB patients. The result of the survey being conducted in 99 clusters across the country from January 1 would be published by the end of 2019. RSS