Health Ministry wants private GPs to implement ‘DOT’ way to treat TB patients

The Star
KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry is planning to expand the "Directly Observed Treatment" (DOT) method for treating Tuberculosis (TB) patients to private clinics soon.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said Saturday the ministry was now in talks with the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) to get private general practitioners (GPs) to act as DOT supervisors to their TB patients.

DOT is a practice that requires a care-giver to observe directly TB patients taking their medication committedly for six to nine months in order to ensure that they are completely cured.

"We need our patients to comply with the treatment. If patients do not comply with the treatment plan, they will prolong the illness as well as raise the risk of communicating the disease," he told reporters after attending the World TB Day 2012, here Saturday.

Patients compliance in treatment was crucial to curing the disease, currently the number one cause of death amongst all reported infectious diseases in the country, he said.

He added that if left untreated, a TB patient could infect 10 to 15 people in a single year.

Liow said in the fight against TB, more health facilities were also being made available for diagnostic and treatment purposes, so that patients with tuberculosis can be detected and treated early.

He said cooperation with NGOs was also being intensified to increase public awareness on TB, which the government targets to eliminate by year 2050.

Apart from that, he said the government also allowed TB patients who did not have caregivers to be treated as in-patients at government hospitals, while patients who refused to comply with the treatment programme could be quarantined.

He said currently the success rate of patients cured from TB was 80 percent and that the ministry hoped to increase it to 85 percent.

TB cases in Malaysia saw an increase of seven percent last year with a total of 20,666 cases reported compared to 19,337 cases in 2010.

Liow said this was due to the wider screening and detection mechanisms implemented, which also allowed for early treatment of TB patients.

He said the higher number was also due to increased cases of HIV infection and diabetes cases while foreigners made up 10 per cent of the total TB cases reported. Bernama