Islamabad: (Web Desk) Pakistan has recorded 49 more Covid-19 infections and no fatality during the last 24 hours, showed the statistics released by the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Sunday morning.
Furthermore the death toll in the country remained the same at 30,624 while the number of total infections now rose to 1,573,690 after adding the fresh 49 cases. During the last 24 hours, 8,944 tests were conducted throughout Pakistan whereas the positivity ratio stood at 0.55 percent. The number of patients in critical care was recorded at 39.
Urgency lacking as TB passes Covid as biggest killer: Following gargantuan global efforts against Covid-19, tuberculosis is once again the world’s biggest infectious killer, top expert said, lamenting the lack of focus on rooting out TB.
Moreover Mel Spigelman, president of the non-profit TB Alliance said, “hailed the swift and dramatic progress to rein in the Covid pandemic, with a vast array of safe and effective vaccines, tests and treatments developed in the space of two years. But the juxtaposition with TB is pretty stark.”
Tuberculosis, once called consumption, was the world’s biggest infectious killer before the arrival of Covid-19, with 1.5 million people dying from the disease each year. With global Covid deaths steadily declining, “TB has regained the dubious distinction,” Spigelman said.
According to the source, the TB Alliance, a non-profit working to develop and deliver faster-acting and affordable drugs against the disease, especially in poorer countries, points out that based on the annual death rate, TB kills 4,109 people a day. That compares to 1,449 people a day dying due to Covid, calculated from the 40,578 deaths reported in the past 28 days on the Johns Hopkins University dashboard.
Major setback: But unlike Covid, there appears to be little, and even waning, interest in taking on TB. In fact, the pandemic had a devastating impact on efforts to battle tuberculosis, with TB hospitals taken over for Covid care, and lockdowns preventing patients from coming in for diagnosis and care.
As per result details, the number of annual TB deaths swelled for the first time in a decade in 2020. “We went from what I honestly consider to be unbelievably slow progress, but at least progress, to a reversal. It has been a major setback.” Spigelman said.
Meanwhile billions of dollars were being thrown at the Covid fight, global economic woes and swelling geopolitical tensions prompted top donors towards the TB battle to tighten their purse-strings.
Most of the TB Alliance donors suddenly could not commit more than a year of funding at a time and slashed the amounts given, with traditional top donor Britain providing no funding at all this year.
Moreover “I am very worried that the progress that has been made, which has already been eroded by Covid-19 could be even further eroded,” Spigelman said.
Game changer: Ironically, these difficulties are coming amid a revolution in the treatment of drug-resistant TB. Around five percent of the 9.5 million people who contract TB each year are resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics, making them difficult to treat. Until recently, “the situation with drug resistant TB was horrible.” Spigelman said.
As per details, Patients were forced to take five to eight pills a day, and often a daily injection, for up to two years, with horrible side effects and a cure-rate of just 20 to 30 percent. But a new drug regimen B-Pal, first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019, consists of just three pills a day for six months, and has far fewer side-effects and a cure-rate of 90 percent. I think it’ll really be an amazing game changer. Spigelman said.
Could be eradicated: He acknowledged though that “we are closer to the beginning of this journey than we are to the end of it,” pointing out that resources are needed to roll out the new regimen to the patients who need it.
According to the source, Spigelman blamed the lacking urgency around rooting out TB on it being ‘a disease of the poor.’ Spigelman said that “If rich people around the world were getting it, I think we would see a very different response.”
As things stand, candidate vaccines against TB have been languishing, with no funding available to develop them, and there have been no attempts to roll out easy testing like the kind developed for Covid-19.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.