(Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam has requested stronger
and more to wipe out tuberculosis (TB) by 2030 at a ceremony
held in Hanoi on March 23 in response to the World Tuberculosis Day 2019.
“We need to do to raise public awareness of TB which
takes many lives each year. Although TB is an infectious disease, it is
treatable and curable thanks to the medical technology advances”, he stressed.
Financial mechanisms as well as application of new technologies and treatment
should be encouraged while people from all walks of life should be engaged in
the fight against TB, he added.
According to Prof. Dr. Nguyen Viet Nhung,
head of the National TB Prevention Programme and Director of the National Lung
Hospital, Vietnam is in the world’s top 30 countries with high TB burden.
The country ranks 16th in the number of TB patients and 13th in the rankings of drug-resistant TB patients. Seventy percent of the TB
patients are of working age (between 15 and 55).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that there were 124,000 new TB
cases in Vietnam in 2017. During that year, the disease killed 12,000 people,
much higher than the number of fatalities due to traffic accidents the same
time.
Thanks to the national strategy on TB prevention, coupled with advanced
diagnosis system, the TB cases in the country fell dramatically. In the past
decade, TB cases drop 31 percent, average 3.8 percent each year.
The WHO said that Vietnam is on the right track to end TB by 2030. However,
Nhung said that the TB prevention programme is facing various challenges,
particularly in maintaining sustainable achievements until 2030, and engaging the
society in the fight against TB.
On the occasion, the National Lung Hospital, National
Tuberculosis Control Programme, TB Patients Support Fund in collaboration with
the national humanitarian information portal 1400 launched a text message
campaign to mobilise financial sources to help needy TB patients.-VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
