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69 Cases of Pulmonary TB Reported in UAE in 2008

SHARJAH – Sixty-nine new cases of pulmonary tuberculosis were reported in the UAE last year, according to a senior Ministry of Health official.

CEO of Health Policies at MoH, Dr Mahmood Fikree, said that the current number of TB cases in the country came to 97. “This number is lower compared to international figures that report one new infection every minute,” he said.

According to the World Health Organisation, two billion people in the world will become co-infected with HIV and TB by 2020. As per the UAE law, expatriates seeking residency or work permit have to be screened for this infectious disease and if found infected, they are deported.

To curb the disease, the UAE also has a stringent but a free four-pronged programme that starts at birth and continues until school age.

During a workshop held recently, experts discussed the re-emergence of the disease worldwide. “The UAE is a high-risk country since most expatriates come from countries with a high prevalence of the disease,” said Head of the Preventive Medicine Department, Sharjah Medical District, MoH, Dr Jamil Turki.

In 1998, 773 cases of pulmonary TB were reported – a substantial increase from the 308 reported in 1989 though the number has been dwindling since.

“Ninety per cent of the cases detected in the country are expatriates. 
Seventy per cent of these are from Africa and Asia,” said Dr Turki. “The increasing number of cases also put a burden on the economy since most belong to the 15-49 age group which is normally considered economically productive,” he added.

He also said that Abu Dhabi and Sharjah reported the highest number of infected people seeking residency in the country in 2005-06. The UAE has also signed a pact on TB Elimination Incidence with GCC countries.

The health ministry is considering extending its budget to buy machinery to cut time to detect the disease.

Head of the TB Control Programme at the MoH, Dr Kulthoom Mohammed Hassan, said that the WHO was yet to give a go ahead for two models that could reduce the detection time.

“The machines are used to treat the intensity of the strain in borderline cases, and will probably be installed at the Central Research Laboratory,” she said. The tests being conducted at present to detect the disease are less accurate and may take four to eight weeks to give results. In 2008, the UN said that the progress of the global fight against the disease was slow. Clinical Pathologist, Preventive Medicine, Sharjah Medical District, MoH, Dr Ayad Alajeel, said that the diagnostic methods were slow due to the emergence of drug resistant strains and shortage of funds.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com