LAHORE, March 23: Eighteen-year-old Ahsan Sharafat lives with his five siblings and parents in a congested locality of Chuna Mandi in the walled city. His father is a junk dealer and he assists him in his business. He is not coming to the shop these days. His father told his fellows that Ahsan had contracted tuberculosis and doctors advised him complete rest for a month or so.

Ahsan is not the only victim of TB. A person or two in every third house of Ahsan’s locality (Katri Bawa Shah) is suffering from the disease. He is getting treatment from the Gulab Devi hospital and he is hopeful that he will be cured within three months, as “the disease has not touched the dangerous level”.

“I and residents of the surrounding areas are unaware of preventive measures against the disease. Two persons of my locality have lost their lives due to the disease during the last one year,” Ahsan says.

Dr Muhammad Amir, who runs his clinic adjacent to the locality, holds sanitation problems and unhygienic conditions responsible for high incidence of the disease in the area. As primarily it is an air-borne disease, its patients need to use separate utensils and kept in quarantine to avoid spread of the disease to other members of the family.

Like the rest of the world, Pakistan is observing the World TB Day on March 24 (today) with a theme “TB anywhere is TB everywhere” offering a message of urgency and shared responsibility.

According to reports, Pakistan ranks sixth among the 22 high-burden TB countries with two million infected people. Some 300,000 TB cases are being reported in the country every year. Though the Punjab government had kicked off directly observed treatment short course (DOTS) strategy to control the increasing trend of TB in 2002, it has yet to meet the desired targets.

Executive District Officer (Lahore) Dr Inamul Haq claims that the DOTS is helping control the disease as free treatment along with medicines are being provided to the TB patients at all rural health centers, district headquarters and other public-sector hospitals. At present the government is achieving a success rate of 80 per cent in such cases, he adds.

According to palmonologists, TB is caused by bacteria called ‘mycobacterium tuberculosis’. The bacteria usually attack lungs but TB bacteria can attack any part of the body such as kidney, spine and brain. If not treated properly, it can be fatal.

They say TB is spread through air from one person to another. The bacteria persist in the air when a person with active TB of the lungs or throat coughs or sneezes. The people with active TB disease are curable.

The disease in the lungs may cause symptoms such as a bad cough that lasts for three weeks or longer pain in the chest coughing up blood or sputum. Unhygienic conditions, heavy smoking and excessive use of alcoholic also cause TB.

Dr Hussein A Gezairy, WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region director, says at least 111,000 people die annually owing to the disease in the region. He says only five countries — Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Somalia and Tunisia — have met the targets.