So far this year, 204 people have died of tuberculosis in the Dominican Republic.

The health authorities announced yesterday that 4,093 new cases of tuberculosis were recorded this year, including 204 deaths.

Last year, the disease caused 336 deaths and 4,012 new cases were detected, indicating that the number of deaths has been reduced.

The Minister of Public Health, Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas, indicated that with the implementation of the control program and the provision of shortened treatments duly monitored, the country has succeeded in reducing from 60 to 45 cases per 100 000 inhabitants. , thanks to the increase in the budget allocated to drugs against HIV and tuberculosis, the implementation of rapid testing of molecules and the inclusion of new drugs.

During a binational meeting, the health authorities of Haiti and the Dominican Republic agreed that the most vulnerable people to HIV / AIDS were people living in extreme poverty, people infected with HIV, prisoners and immigrants, while reaffirming their identity. commitment to work together to eliminate the epidemic on the island by 2035.

The official stressed that the solution to this problem and other health problems should not only focus on the hospital, but also on primary care at the highest level, which would allow early detection of case and rapid follow-up.

Sánchez Cárdenas said that the effort to fight the disease was to be an islander because of the rise of Haitian immigration, which is an important source of this health problem.

A challenge for both countries

For their part, representatives of the Haitian Ministry of Health insisted that tuberculosis was a challenge for both countries because of the constant migratory flow, which explains the need to combine efforts to accelerate the response and fight against disease.

Similarly, they thanked international organizations for their assistance in improving patient follow-up and follow-up, referral and counter-referral systems, as well as timely diagnosis.

The Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) Communicable Disease Adviser emphasized that TB continues to be a threat to both countries. It should therefore be fought through primary care strategies and effective surveillance through the patient's complete history and fidelity to the disease. treatment

Case research is essential in the fight against tuberculosis

The health authorities' efforts are aimed at detecting people who still do not know they are infected and thus avoiding infecting others, because each infected person has the potential to transmit it to ten or twenty people. In this sense, it is recommended that people who consult a cold cough and cold for more than fifteen days to consult a doctor to avoid the risk of contracting the disease.