At least 170 people have died from tuberculosis while 12,634 have been affected by the disease in several parts of the district in four years to 2012.
The above statistics were revealed at a roundtable discussion titled ‘TB Control and Role of All Levels’ at the District Press Club on Wednesday.
A speaker citing a report of Brac, one of the country’s leading non-government organisations, said the organisation carried out examinations of coughs of about 75,903 people in the district from 2009 to 2012. The tests found 12,634 of them had TB.
About 170 of them, including women, died during the period, the report said.
According to the report, at least 34 people died of TB in 2009 in the district while 49 in 2010, 46 in 2011 and 41 in 2012. Under a Brac programme, TB patients are identified in 456 mobile ceantres through testing coughs in 17 laboratories.
Organised by National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Directorate General of Health Services, Bagerhat Press Club and Brac, the roundtable was attended, among others, by Additional Deputy Commissioner Habibul Haque Khan.
Bagerhat Deputy Civil Surgeon Dr Rafiqul Islam presided over it.
