Jakarta: The Indonesian government has renewed commitment to speed up tuberculosis elimination by taking all necessary measures.
“Tuberculosis is one of the 10 infectious diseases that cause most deaths in the world. Its (death rate) per year is higher than that of HIV/AIDS,” said President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in his remarks during Limited Cabinet Meeting on Acceleration of Tuberculosis Handling on Tuesday, as quoted by the Cabinet Secretariat's official website.
In Indonesia, the President added, 116,000 people died due to the disease in 2017 while in 2018 the tuberculosis caused 98,000 deaths.
75 percent of tuberculosis patients are in their productive age (15 to 55), he added.
On that occasion, the President issued three directives to combat tuberculosis:
First, aggressive tracking is needed to find COVID-19 and tuberculosis patients at the same time. “We must be aware that out of 845,000 tuberculosis patients, only 562,000 of them are reported,” he said.
Second, tuberculosis diagnostic and treatment services must continue until the patients recover and tuberculosis drugs must also be made available. “Presidential Regulation or Ministerial Regulation must be issued immediately, if deemed necessary, to find and cure the tuberculosis” the President said.
Third, disease prevention and health promotion measures to overcome tuberculosis must use multi-sectoral approaches, including in terms of infrastructure. “In order to prevent transmission, houses with a high humidity level and a limited access to sunlight and those without ventilation must be repaired, especially in densely populated areas, ” the President said.
The President further said that the measures to combat tuberculosis are not only the domain of Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Affairs but also Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing.
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