MSF launches project to combat Drug-resistant TB in Pakistan

The international medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) /Doctors Without Borders has opened a Programmatic Management of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (PMDT) site at the district headquarters and teaching hospital Gujranwala, Pakistan in collaboration with the Provincial Tuberculosis Control Programme, Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department, Punjab. The project aims to diagnose and treat patients with drugresistant tuberculosis from Gujranwala and surrounding districts. Tuberculosis is one of the world’s deadly infectious diseases. As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), Pakistan ranks fifth among tuberculosis high-burden countries and fourth for drug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide. The newly established Gujranwala PMDT clinic supported by MSF will provide free of cost treatment to patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis. It will offer a patient-centred model of care that has diagnosis and treatment all under one roof.