Jordan: Kingdom maintains low TB prevalence for second consecutive year
For the second year in a row, the Kingdom has succeeded in maintaining low prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) among Jordanians, a Ministry of Health official said on Monday.
Khalid Abu Rumman, director of the ministry's respiratory disease department, said Jordan has met the World Health Organisation's (WHO) benchmark to reduce the global tuberculosis (TB) burden by 2015 ahead of time.
He explained that the Kingdom achieved this goal in 2010, when TB prevalence in Jordan was six cases per 100,000 people, a drop of over 50 per cent from 1995, when the rate stood at 14 cases per 100,000.
"We maintained the same rate in 2011," Abu Rumman told The Jordan Times over the phone yesterday, noting that 233 cases were detected among Jordanians in 2011, compared to 232 cases in 2010 and 272 in 2009.
Of the total TB cases detected last year, eight were classified as multi-drug resistant (MDR), according to Abu Rumman, who explained that those diagnosed with MDR are placed in quarantine for six months.
"After that we keep track of them for 18 months to ensure that they have completely recovered," he noted, adding that the TB mortality rate in the Kingdom stands at 1 per cent.
Abu Rumman said the National HIV and TB Programme will launch an awareness campaign in the Kingdom's schools this month.
"The campaign targets schoolchildren because they can help spread the word among their family members and classmates," he explained, noting that the campaign will also include a play about TB, performed by Jordanian actress Rania Ismaiel.
TB is an infectious bacterial disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs, according to the WHO. It is transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease.
In healthy people, infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis often causes no symptoms, since the person's immune system acts to "wall off" the bacteria. The symptoms of active TB of the lung are coughing, sometimes with sputum or blood, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats. Tuberculosis is treatable with a six-month course of antibiotics.
The Jordan Times
