Himalayan News Service

Lahan, May 21:

The Siraha district public health office has informed that 14 persons died of tuberculosis in the district in the past eight months. This information was provided at a programme organised to regroup the five-year-old DOTS committee here today. The DPHO said seven men and a woman died in the first four months of the DOTS programme while in the second four-month period, two men and four women died of the disease. Health workers said, TB patients were hard to trace because people still tend to hide the infection. Awareness campaigns have, however, helped in increase of the number of people visiting health centres to have their sputum tested. The DPHO statistics showed 255 out of 474 samples of sputum tested in the first quarter of the current fiscal year were positive for the disease. Some 230 people diagnosed with TB and were completely cured after treatment. Four patients gave up medication while three went to other places to get treatment.