25 December 2007
Bauchi — Bauchi State Government has said that it has set up about 50 tuberculosis free treatment centres in 14 General Hospitals to check the spread of the disease.
The state Director of Disease Control, Alhaji Aminu Abubakar, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Bauchi.
Abubakar said the government established the centres in collaboration with the World Bank and five NGOs.
He said the government had also opened special observatory centres in all the 20 council areas to monitor the response of patients to the drugs administered on them.
"Directory Observe Treatment (DOT) centres were set up in all the 20 Local Government Areas.
"The 40 centres were designed to enhance access to referral services and provision of free drugs to patients especially those in rural communities," Abubakar said.
He said two centres were established in each council area while expanded mobile units were also established to provide services in markets.
"These mobile units are put in place to visit villages on market days and provide treatment to patients.
"Some 200 health personnel were trained on how to manage the centres and enhance good administration of drugs," Abubakar said.
He also said the government had provided clinical and laboratory equipment to facilitate the eradication of the disease.
The director said the government had also established a health technical committee to study the relationship between tuberculosis and HIV and AIDS.
Abubakar said the committee would also carry out campaign against stigmatisation of HIV and AIDS patients.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
