TB Epidemic Slows in Ukraine, Doctors Hopeful

Ukraine could be turning the corner in its fight against a 10-year tuberculosis epidemic after the rate of new cases slowed last year, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

Ukraine could be turning the corner in its fight against a 10-year tuberculosis epidemic after the rate of new cases slowed last year, the health ministry said on Wednesday. But officials urged caution, saying the real figures for TB could be higher due to a lack of funds for mass testing and they still faced a major challenge in combating multi-drug resistant TB and the disease’s lethal partnership with HIV/AIDS. “We have been witnessing a TB epidemic in Ukraine for almost 10 years already. We also registered a growth in new cases last year,” Yury Feshchenko, a leading expert on lung diseases, told a news conference. “But in 11 out of 27 Ukrainian regions the number of new TB cases slipped. This proves that the TB epidemic is under finally control,” he said, speaking on World Tuberculosis Day. Ukraine, due to border an expanded European Union in May, announced a TB epidemic in 1995 and since then doctors have fought hard to control the disease which staged a comeback after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The ministry said growth in new TB cases slowed to 2.5 percent last year from 10.2 percent in 2002 due to increased state financing, steady drugs supply and improvement of testing. They said new TB cases among children and teenagers had declined and some limited success was being achieved on controlling TB in prisons. But doctors were quick to say that radical steps to reform Ukraine’s deteriorating health system were required before they could see a decline in TB cases across the country. They also said more research and new drugs were vital to stop the alarming spread of multi-drug resistant TB and help reduce mortality from TB in patients affected with HIV/AIDS. Ukraine has one of fastest growing AIDS epidemics in Europe. The health ministry said it had registered more than 37,000 new TB cases and over 10,000 people died from the disease in 2003. Official figures showed a total of about 77 TB cases per 100,000 people compared with 12 in Britain. “The real level of TB cases could be by 50 to 70 percent higher,” Feshchenko said, adding that the last tests across the country were held in Soviet times. The health ministry said about 65 percent of people affected with the TB were poor and socially displaced. More than a quarter of Ukrainians live in poverty.(Source: Reuters Health, March 2004)