On the occasion of World Tuberculosis Day, the National Association for Awareness and Prevention of Tuberculosis (ANSPT) indicates that 29,300 Moroccans are affected by this disease which causes 3,000 deaths annually.
The daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia reports, in its edition of Friday, March 25, that these worrying figures must push the government and civil society to combine their efforts to fight against this disease.
To do this, continues the ANSPT, it is necessary to tackle the drug-resistant strain and multi-resistant tuberculosis while ensuring that the budget of the National Tuberculosis Control Program (PNLAT) which has a deficit of 37% is increased. .
The same source points out that tuberculosis is one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world. It kills 4,000 people daily and infects nearly 30,000. Faced with the seriousness of the situation in Morocco, the Court of Auditors carried out the control and evaluation of the management of the PNLAT during the period 2010/2019. Through the analysis of the epidemiological situation and the evolution of tuberculosis in our country, it turned out that the rate of diagnosis of the disease, in all its variants, has not improved.
The daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia reports that the success rate of anti-tuberculosis treatment has not changed significantly, while the average number of patients who have interrupted treatment has remained static at 8%.
The other observation shows that most of the efforts are essentially concentrated on pulmonary tuberculosis despite the increase in contamination by extrapulmonary tuberculosis. In addition, patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are faced with many problems since only two hospitals take care of them, in this case the University Hospitals of Rabat and Casablanca.
It should also be added that the National Program for the Fight against Tuberculosis (PNLAT) is centralized by the pulmonary diseases department under the direction of the science of epidemics at the Ministry of Health. This service is responsible for coordinating the actions and activities of the PNLAT with the main stakeholders at the level of the regions, provinces and prefectures as well as with the network of tuberculosis laboratories.
Source: The 360