Shyamoli 250 bed TB Hospital in Dhaka has been named as the first one-stop service (OSS) centre for tuberculosis (TB) patients in Bangladesh.
Prof Dr ABM Khurshid Alam, director general (DG) of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), made the announcement at a workshop in the hospital on Sunday.
Prof Khurshid said the government will establish more one-stop TB centres across the country, especially in divisional cities, for the greater interest of the TB patients.
According to the DGHS, the next one-stop TB centre is to be established in Rajshahi.
DGHS Director (MBDC) Dr Samiul Islam, also line director of (TB-L & ASP), said the centre will start its activities by the end of next month.
“All kinds of diagnostic tools will be installed here. It will not be enough to just have the tools alone, they have to be functional,” he said.
He said the authorities will make arrangements to make any missing services available at the hospita las soon as possible.
The line director said the TB program under the fourth Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Program (4th HPNSP) is going very well.
“Our target was to attain annual case detection of all forms of TB over 85% by 2022, but we have already achieved it and the detection rate is now 90 to 95% . We have to screen some 2.7-3 million people every year. Among them, some 300,000 people have to be diagnosed,” he added.
Prof Samiul said many TB patients are children who are not getting proper attention.
“Covid-19 has slowed down the detection a little, but the DGHS is recovering fast. None of the over 400,000 detected patients undergoing treatment missed a dose during pandemic,” the official said.
Mentioning that the TB program is the biggest single disease program in the country, Prof Samiul said the morbidity rate from the disease is still high as many are dying before accessing the treatment facilities.
Meanwhile, senior TB diagnostics specialist Dr Sarder Tanzir Hossain said Bangladesh needs to establish ISO certified TB labs in the country.
Acknowledging the matter, Prof Dr Samiul said they need more data about the TB infection and technology to determine the current situation of the country and effectively tackle the disease.
