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Highest level of political commitment needed to end TB by 2030
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Fight against TB: WHO South-East Asia Region Office (SEARO) member countries agree to accelerate efforts to End TB in the region in a statement adopted at the End TB Summit in New Delhi, India, on March 14. (Kompas.com/File)
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ndonesia has one of the world’s highest rates of tuberculosis (TB) infections. Rita Widiadana and Shobha Shukla spoke with Erlina Burhan, head of directly observed treatment short course (TB DOTS) and multi-drug-resistant TB at Persahabatan Hospital, East Jakarta, for The Jakarta Post. Erlina is also a board member of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, which will hold its 50th conference in Hyderabad, India, on Oct. 30-Nov. 2. The following are excerpts from the interview.
What is Indonesia’s major target in eliminating TB by 2030?
Indonesia is one of the United Nations (UN) member countries that have committed to upholding the 2018 Political Declaration of the UN high-level meeting on tuberculosis that includes treating 40 million patients with TB and 30 million people with latent TB infection (LTBI) globally by 2022. A person with LTBI does not have TB symptoms and cannot spread the bacteria to others, but can develop active TB. The target for Indonesia is to treat 1.56 million people with LTBI by 2020.
What does the country have to do to eliminate TB by 2030?
Indonesia is a high-burden TB country, ranking third in the world after India and China. The incidence is around 845,000 cases per year, meaning there are many contacts with TB patients. An estimated 85 million of the population is already infected with LTBI.
(TB remains among Indonesia’s top-four causes of death with 300 people dying of TB daily; a study estimates the economic burden related to treated and untreated cases reach US$6.9 billion).
But it is difficult to treat 85 million people. So, the government is prioritizing high-risk groups such as children under 5 and people living with HIV for preventive treatment. But we need to [...] target other risk groups to be screened and treated for LTBI
