KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 -- World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, celebrated today, aims to raise awareness and support for various efforts to control and prevent the disease, said Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The event commemorates the historic discovery of the tuberculosis bacterium, Mycobacterium, by Dr Robert Koch on March 24, 1882.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were an estimated 10 million TB cases throughout the world in 2018, with 1.5 million deaths recorded in the same year.
In Malaysia, 26,352 cases were reported in 2019, marking a two per cent increase compared to the 25,837 cases found in 2018.
In line with this year’s World TB Day theme, ‘It’s time to END TB!’, the ministry was calling on all parties who provided TB-related health services, including government and private health facilities, to commit towards jointly undertaking early detection and treatment for all TB patients including drug resistant-TB cases, said Dr Noor Hisham, in a statement issued today.
He added that Malaysia aimed to be TB-free by the year 2035, and in order to make this a reality, awareness of this disease needed to reach all levels of Malaysian society, and close cooperation between all government agencies, the private sector and non-governmental organisations, was very much needed.
-- BERNAMA
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