Bhaktapur: The World Tuberculosis Day is being marked across the country today through various awareness programmes under the theme ‘Yes! We Can End TB: National Campaign, Our Contribution.’
Director at the National Tuberculosis Centre, Dr Bhuwan Poudel, told RSS that this Day is being observed with the commitment of fulfilling responsibilities by all from their respective fields with an objective of ending tuberculosis by 2035 and making the country tuberculosis-free by 2050.
Stating that 42 percent of TB patients are still out of treatment in the country, he mentioned that problems have surfaced as most of the patients do not openly talk about their disease, as well as the inability of using technology.
Poudel shared that 39,151 new patients were detected in fiscal year 2024/25. Of them, 39 per cent were women, 61 per cent men and 5.6 per cent children below 15 years.
The government has been running tuberculosis treatment services in 6,241 health institutions to control the disease, he viewed, adding 785 health institutions have been providing specified microscopy service while 142 health institutions are providing rapid testing service free of cost.
He added that 31 centres and 98 sub-centres are providing treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis, as well as ‘Tuberculosis-free Nepal Campaign’ has been expanded to 149 local levels and nine AI-assisted digital X-ray machines are being used to test tuberculosis.
Poudel underlined that 10.7 million cases of active tuberculosis are detected in the world every year. Of them, more than 1.2 million people lost their lives.
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