Eight Priority Provinces
At the same event, dr. Tiffany Tiara Pakasi, MA, Ministry of Health’s Acting Director of the Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases, declares that the Government emphasizes the importance of tracing the source of infection, because child TB occurs in 10% of all cases. “Children are the heirs of our nation. If they suffer from TB and their lungs get scarred, they will have trouble breathing, have restricted growth, and become more prone to sickness all their lives. What’s scary is that we have a total of 824,000 cases, but we have yet to find the source of infection for them all. Therefore, the Government is now running the ‘TOSS’ campaign for TB – ‘ temukan dan obati sampai sembuh’ (‘fully find and cure’) the disease. We need to be alert if our child has a history of close contact with a TB patient in the family, or if their caretaker suffers from it. In case of TB, tracing of infection source is called‘ contact investigation’. Its purpose is to isolate these sources and lower TB incidence, i.e. from 300 to 65 cases for each 100,000 persons by 2030,” she said.
She went on to reiterate that TB is curable. Compliance with medication schedule, which must be maintained for 6-9 consecutive months, is the key to the success of TB therapy and achieving a cure. TB must be treated until it is completely cleared.
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On the other hand, the Government has enacted Presidential Regulation Number 67 of 2021 concerning the Mitigation of TB in order to achieve its elimination target. “Eight provinces become the priority target for TB elimination, without neglecting the remaining 26: North Sumatra, Banten, DKI Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, South Sulawesi, and East Nusa Tenggara. The most important thing in case of TB is the same as with other potentially fatal diseases : prevention. Preventive methods include the administration of BCG vaccine, maintaining a clean and healthy lifestyle, consuming healthy and nutritious foods, a n d sustaining good ventilation and natural lighting in the home,” dr. Tiara said. (est)