KULOB, February 12, Asia-Plus  -- It is already three days that mass examination of population for TB has been launched in Khoja Sartez and Sino communities in Khatlon’s Vose district, Said Davlatov, head sanitary physician of Kulob, told Asia-Plus on Tuesday.  

According to him, by instruction of the Ministry of Health (MoH) two mobile fluorography labs are currently working in the district.  “They should examine some half the district’s population,” said Davlatov, “A total population of Vose is some 19,000 people.”  

He added that all school students had to date been examined for tuberculosis.  “The TB examination campaign has been launched because Vose accounts for 70 percent of a total number of new TB cases registered in the Kulob region of Khatlon last year.”

            In all, on average 1,000 new cases of TB are registered in the Khatlon province every year, he said.    

Specialists name poverty, natural disasters, unemployment, poor housing conditions and nutrition, and rising drug abuse as contributing factors. All of these factors contribute to the appearance of chronic forms of tuberculosis, an increased incidence of infection, the spread of the disease, and the number of fatalities, according to them.