Dr. Ziad Memish, the Deputy Minister for Public Health, stated that the Ministry of Health (MOH) has launched the National Campaign for Tuberculosis (TB) Combat which is to last for a year in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO). He went on to point out that the kick-off of the campaign comes in conjunction with this year's World TB Day on the 24th of March.
In the meantime, Dr. Memish made clear that the campaign aims at attracting the attention of all the community individuals and familiarize them with this disease, its symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and means of prevention. It also aims at familiarizing the patients and their families with how to deal with it until the full recovery is achieved, as well as educating those working in the governmental and private health sectors in terms of the latest developments in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention field.
He further affirmed that the Ministry of Health (MOH), along with the follow-up and interest of his Excellency the Minister of Health, exerts its utmost efforts to maintain the health and safety of citizens and residents, and prevent them, Allah willing, from disease through implementing a number of preventive programs and health educational activities.
He went on adding that “this campaign is targeting all of those, as their concerted efforts along with the MOH's efforts are to contribute to achieving the aim of the campaign, which is to eradicate this disease from the Kingdom; especially, it is of the states with low epidemiology.”
For her part, Dr. Nailah Abu Abualjaddaal, the director of the MOH Chest Diseases Department, pointed out that the Ministry of Health (MOH) took charge of what it takes to mount this campaign during its implementation period in terms of securing all awareness materials on TB in all its health institutions nationwide and providing diagnosis and treatment services for free. In addition to this, it is to restrict those in contact with TB patients and conduct epidemiological survey for them; and treat whoever turns out that they were infected with disease as a result of contacting.
She also mention that the health institutions for the private sector can play a role in this campaign, through detecting this disease and transferring the detected cases to the MOH's hospitals to complete the rest of the treatment procedures for free.
Within the same vein, Dr. Nailah affirmed that this campaign is directed to citizens and residents, due to its easy and fast transmission unless the necessary precautions are taken, in line with the health awareness and sound knowledge which this aims at providing to people. And she went on saying that "the Ministry of Health targets all the Kingdom's population in terms of awareness and providing the TB combat health services without discrimination; meaning that the non-nationals can benefit from the TB combat services for free in the governmental hospitals related to the Ministry of Health (MOH).
She shed light on the MOH's efforts to combat the disease. She mentioned that the Ministry of Health (MOH) uses the guiding evidence and international measures, especially, the evidence and measures of the World Health Organization (MOH) with regard to diagnosing, treating, and following up this disease.
Also, the Ministry of Health works on the early prevention and combat for this disease through vaccinating the newborns with vaccine-related disease prevention, in addition to the swiftness of treating and detecting their infection with the disease; and restricting those in contact with them through the epidemiological survey process and treating whoever got infected with the disease as a result of contacting for free.
Finally, she made clear that one of the most important prevention means is to treat the infected cases and follow up the health habits to prevent the disease such as ventilation, exposure to sun beam in a moderate way, washing hands regularly, good health nutrition, and exercising.
It is worthwhile to mention that the latest statistics published by the Ministry of Health (MOH) on this disease; 1432h-2011, underline that the total cases detected for new TB injuries : pulmonary and non-pulmonary in that year reached 3872 cases, of which there are 1366 cases; 35%, for non-Saudis. And the comparison of the total of these new cases to the total of the cases of the previous year 1431h showed a decline by 0,047 for every one hundred thousand people.
As for the most prominent goals and missions of the World TB Day 2013 are to eliminate the TB-related deaths, make available the care provided to the TB patients, provide the swift, effective treatment for the patient, fast-to-appear, cheaply-priced, and easy-to-conduct check tests, and effective vaccines to prevent from TB; and seek a community free of TB, Allah willing.
This year's annual event is held under the theme "Stop TB in my Lifetime", which is marked on March 24th of every year. This is with the aim of commemorating the discovery of Dr. Robert Koch in 1882 for bacterial bacillus causing TB, which was the first step towards diagnosing disease and its treatment. Thus, the World Health Organization (WHO) seeks to limit the TB incidence rate and its deaths by double, by the advent of 2015.