Indonesia Numbers Three Among TB Victims in the World
Monday, 24 March, 2008 | 15:49 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Denpasar: There are 485,000 people in Indonesia infected by tuberculosis every year. This number puts Indonesia in third position with TB case worldwide after India, 815.000 cases and China, 595,000 cases.

Director General of Disease Control and Environmental Health, Health Department, Dr. Nyoman Kandun, MPH said that among the hundreds of case, 68 percent are possible to detect, and 87 percent can be cured. “The rest become a source of contagion, where one person can infect 10-15 people, “ Kandun said on Monday (24/3) in the commemoration of worldwide TB at the correctional instituition, Krobokan, Denpasar, Bali.

According to the national survey in 2004, TB spread over the entire region of Indonesia with death of 140 thousand people every year. The survey from 2006 showed 9.6 million new cases with a prediction of 1.7 million deaths .

Kandun said the government provided funding of Rp 266 billion per year from the state budget (APBN) and a donation from donor countries to eradicate the disease. One of executed strategies since 2004 is by focusing the disease eradication in the correctional institution.

The latest survey mentioned the Indonesian prison has 800 TB patients. “Contagion is easy in prison although the medication is also available there,” said Kandun. Patients can be controlled for a six-month treatment in the prison.

The Minister for Justice and Human Rights, Andi Matalatta, welcomes this effort of the Health Department. “We don't want our prisons to be a source for disease contagion,” he said. He said that he had prepared help in the form of medical resources and health clinics.

ROFIQI HASAN