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Govt gets Bt690 million to fight Tuberculosis

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) invested about Bt690 million to assist the Public Health Ministry to tackle and control tuberculosis in Thailand, a senior official said on Wednesday.


As a recent survey had revealed that 28 per cent of business operators admitted that tuberculosis (TB) affected their businesses, the campaign would focus on two million industrial workers at 10,000 business establishments in 76 provinces, Permanent Secretary for Public Health Dr Prat Boonyawongvirot told a press conference on Wednesday.

TB was a global issue and the World Health Organisation (WHO) had reported that Thailand was among 22 countries that had highest amount of TB patients. A TB situation in Thailand report last year found that there were 28,349 TB infected people whose symptoms did not show yet, or at a ratio of 88 per 100,000 population, Prat said.

Most TB cases in Thailand were related to HIV/AIDS, as about 15 per cent of HIV/AIDS patients infected TB, while 30 per cent of TB patients were HIV positive, according to Prat.

Public Health Ministry therefore proposed for budget from GFATM in 2002 and was approved of a total of about Bt5.55 billion, about Bt3.9 billion of which was already paid to the ministry, for seven projects to tackle AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Prat said.

Six projects were held from February 2002 to September 2007, he said, the seventh project which received Bt690 million from GFATM was about to begin controlling and preventing TB and AIDS in business establishments.

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