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21 March 2018, 18:15

Belarus among world leaders in treating drug-resistant tuberculosis

MINSK, 21 March (BelTA) – Belarus is a world leader in using new medications to treat extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, BelTA learned from Batyr Berdyklychev, Head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in Belarus, at a press conference on 21 March.

New medications to treat extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) are made available thanks to financing on the part of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. According to Batyr Berdyklychev, Belarus is a world leader in using them thanks to efforts of the antituberculosis service and support of the Healthcare Ministry. He went on saying that plans had been made for all the patients suffering from extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis in Belarus to be treated with such medications by 2019.

The expert also pointed out access to new fast methods for diagnosing the disease. Now patients can be diagnosed virtually within two hours while the process used to take weeks in the past. “Diagnostic equipment — diagnostic cartridges — are also made available as part of the aid from the global fund. But by 2019 the state budget is supposed to start covering half of the demand for them,” explained the head of the WHO Country Office in Belarus.

Apart from that, Belarus is now looking for new approaches and methods to organize the provision of antituberculosis aid. According to Batyr Berdyklychev, a new healthcare provision model is being tested in Brest Oblast. “Work will be shifted from hospital aid to outpatient treatment. As a result, patients will have to stay in hospital for shorter periods of time without sacrificing the quality of treatment. Patients will also get social support at the outpatient level. The spare resources can then be channeled into buying the necessary medications and equipment,” he said.

Batyr Berdyklychev also noted that the incidence of tuberculosis in Europe, including Belarus, has been falling by 4.3% on the average per annum for the last ten years. The data correlates with the epidemiological situation in Belarus where the tuberculosis incidence has dropped by more than 40% in the last ten years, with mortality rate down by 60%.

The head of the WHO Country Office in Belarus stressed that the key purpose of the World Tuberculosis Day, which is marked on 24 March every year, is to encourage world leaders to step up efforts to fight tuberculosis. It is closely tied with the Sustainable Development Goals, which are supposed to stop the tuberculosis epidemic by 2030 among other things.

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