A total of 60,000 tuberculosis (TB) patients are recorded annually in Zambia with a population of 11 million, Saturday Post reported.

The local newspaper quoted the country's Health Minister Sylvia Masebo as telling parliament Thursday that it is a major public health problem in her country and urged parliament members to assist in the identification of patients in their constituencies.

She said home-based care should be regulated to ensure that they are not overcrowded since TB is an airborne disease.

"The basis of TB control is to find as many infectious TB cases as possible and adequately treat them. This entails that the spread of the disease will then be reduced since the source will not be there," she said.

The target of the World Health Organization (WHO) is to detect at least 70 percent of the infectious cases and cure at least 85 percent of the detected cases.

"For this reason the Zambian National TB program has adopted the directly observed treatment short course strategy," said the minister.

She said most TB patients are co-infected with HIV, as TB is the most common opportunistic infection that people living with HIV/AIDS suffer from.

Masebo said there is 300 billion kwacha (nearly 91 million U.S. dollars) budgeted for to TB control program in the budget of the country.

Source: Xinhua