JEDDAH, 23 March 2005 — The Ministry of Health held a seminar at the Jeddah Westin yesterday to mark World TB Day. The event was part of the National Program for Combating Tuberculosis and aimed at raising awareness of the disease.

Dr. Nayla Abuljadayel, the program’s coordinator at Jeddah municipality, explained how early diagnosis and treatment could change the quality of life for the victim and the people around them.

Under the slogan “TB Elimination — Now Is the Time,” the seminar included a theatrical sketch illustrating the effects of delaying medical checkup and not following up on the treatment.

Dr. Abdullateef Al-Derees, director of health affairs at Jeddah municipality, honored medical personnel who participated in the awareness campaign and representatives of public and private sectors.

The program aims at raising the level of detection to 70 percent and treatment level to 85 percent during 2005.

The strategy includes field studies, child immunization, the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course) program, and more community involvement. Treatment of all cases is free at public health facilities.

The DOTS program was launched worldwide by WHO in 1995. In 1993, WHO had announced that TB was “a world crisis” and governments pledged to detect 70 percent of all infectious TB cases and cure 85 percent of those cases by the end of 2005. Eighteen countries out of 180 achieved these targets by 2002.

Globally, 37 percent of the estimated number of TB patients had received treatment under the DOTS strategy by 2002, two and a half times the fraction reported in 1995. The average success rate for treatment under the DOTS strategy was 82 percent. Meeting these “process” targets is essential to achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goals of reducing TB prevalence and deaths by half that of 1990.

In 2005, the Stop TB Partnership Secretariat proposes to focus World TB Day on the central role of frontline TB care providers in the fight against TB.

Tuberculosis is an airborne contagious disease spread only by people who are sick with TB in their lungs. Left untreated, each person with active TB disease will infect on average between 10 and 15 people every year who will not necessarily become sick with the disease. The immune system “walls off” the TB bacilli which, protected by a thick waxy coat, can lie dormant for years. When someone’s immune system is weakened, the chances of becoming sick are greater.