Deputy PM: Medicine indispensable to TB treatment

(Bqp.vn) - It is necessary to ensure a sufficient quantity of medicine for preventing and treating tuberculosis (TB) at any cost, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam has said.

Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam addressing the ceremony. (Photo: VGP)

The Deputy PM the remark at a conference to promote the implementation of the National Strategy for TB Prevention and Control by 2020 with a vision to 2030, which was held by the Ministry of Health in Hanoi on March 21.

Dam praised the efforts made by doctors, physicians and medical workers in fighting against the disease, and thanked international organisations for their support to Vietnam.

He stressed that the health sector should pay more attention to TB prevention in rural areas since more than 70% of those afflicted are farmers.

Approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on March 17, 2014, the strategy emphasises the core role of the health sector, as well as the involvement of the entire political system and private sectors, in fighting the dangerous disease.

The programme objectives are to reduce the number of tuberculosis suffers to under 131 people per 100,000 and the fatality rate to fewer than 10 people per 100,000. The Government hopes to keep the number of people suffering multidrug-resistant TB under 5% of newly diagnosed patients.

To realise these targets, campaigns will be held to raise public awareness of the disease and introduce preventive measures so that sufferers will seek treatment without delay.

Vietnam will also work closely with regional and international countries to swiftly detect and control the spread of tuberculosis across border areas.

Every year, Vietnam diagnoses 130,000 new TB patients, 3,500 of whom suffer from multidrug-resistant TB. Some 18,000 people die of the disease in the country each year.

(Source: VNA)