Hanoi (VNA) - About126,000 people have tuberculosis (TB) in Vietnam, but fewer than 106,000 havereceived treatment, while the others are undetected and sometimes unaware oftheir status, said Director of the Hanoi-based Central Pulmonology Hospital NguyenViet Nhung.

He said that the gap indisease detection poses a high risk to the lives of people with TB as well asto public health.

“Forty percent of theundetected TB patients will die because they haven’t treatment,” Nhung said.

Nhung, who isalso head of the country’s national TB prevention and control programme,said that people with TB do not always announce their conditions because theyare unaware of the disease or afraid of discrimination, so they do not seek medicaltreatment.

Nhung said that withcurrent techniques and tests, TB could be found in two hours after testinginstead of two months as previously. It takes four months to treat TB insteadof six months as before.

It is reported that in Vietnam,the number of people with TB has declined 5 percent yearly since 2015 and thenumber of people die of TB also reduced about 3,000 people yearly.

Vietnam has madeachievements in preventing and controlling TB.

Under the national TBprevention and control programme, new tests recommended by World HealthOrganisation such as the Gene Xpert (a machine that can detect mycobacterium tuberculosis in a sample of sputum) or the Hain Testare used to detect TB early and stop it from spreading.

The programme also facilitatedthe use of new medicine Bedquiline and a short-term treatment scheme formulti-drug-resistant tuberculosis.

In 2009, Vietnam started aninitiative to expand multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment. Up to today,about 11,000 people have received treatment; 70 percent recover.

Moreover, the healthhistory records of people with multidrug–resistant TB have been digitalised.

"Vietnam still faceschallenges in controlling TB. It is necessary to improve grassroots healthcareto detect and treat TB patients early," Nhung said.

Another challenge is thatwhen international donors stop funding the country’s TB control and preventionactivities, Vietnam will need to find alternative sustainable funds.

As reported early this year on World TB Day 2017 (March 24), Vietnamis estimated to need at least 66 million USD annually toreduce the prevalence of patients with TB from 112 to 20 per 100,000people by 2030, essentially eliminating tuberculosis as a public healthproblem.

The national programme onTB prevention and control is currently funded at 26 million USD a year,including 19 million USD from foreign aid.

Now, the Health InsuranceFund covers costs for TB diagnosis and treatment. Beginning in 2019, the healthinsurance fund will also cover medicines for TB patients.

Nhung said that the CentralPulmonology Hospital was planning to develop a fund to support TB treatmentnext year. The fund is expected to help uninsured people buy health insurance.

Health insurance cardholders who cannot afford the co-payment for some medicines will be assistedtoo.-VNA