Early diagnosis and treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis are two major problems in the prevention and control of tuberculosis in my country
At the 2021 National Tuberculosis Academic Conference held recently, Professor Tang Shenjie, chairman of the Chinese Medical Association Tuberculosis Branch and director of the Tuberculosis Clinical Medicine Center of Beijing Chest Hospital, introduced that tuberculosis is one of the main infectious diseases that threaten the health of our people.
my country is one of the 30 countries with a high burden of tuberculosis, multidrug-resistant/rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis, and tuberculosis/HIV dual infection in the world.
There are about 800,000 newly reported tuberculosis patients in my country each year, with an incidence rate of about 58/100,000. The situation of tuberculosis prevention and control is not optimistic.
In an interview with a reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily, Tang Shenjie said that the biggest problem facing my country's tuberculosis prevention and control is the early diagnosis of tuberculosis and the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Discover more undiagnosed tuberculosis patients
Tang Shenjie introduced that in recent years, my country has made great progress in the early diagnosis of tuberculosis. Through self-developed diagnostic methods, combined with new international technologies, the positive rate of tuberculosis pathogenic testing has been greatly increased.
The detection rate has increased from less than 30% to 50%.
In the future, accurate diagnosis or better methods are needed to find more tuberculosis patients who have not been diagnosed.
Tang Shenjie believes that to discover tuberculosis patients and to increase the awareness of tuberculosis among all citizens is the key. We must strengthen citizen health education, increase the popularization rate of tuberculosis prevention knowledge among the general public, and let the people take the initiative to go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment.
At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the popularization of tuberculosis knowledge among the majority of medical staff and raise their awareness of tuberculosis.
Tang Shenjie said, “Now, many general hospitals do not have infection or tuberculosis departments, but there are many undetected tuberculosis patients. No one knows that it is very dangerous." Therefore, he believes that it is very important to increase the early detection rate of tuberculosis in general hospitals. Get treatment."
In addition, the effective management of tuberculosis patients should be strengthened and their standard use of drugs should be supervised.
"If tuberculosis patients do not use drugs regularly, they will not only fail to achieve the therapeutic effect, but they will also develop drug resistance." Tang Shenjie said.
Shortening the course of treatment can improve the compliance of tuberculosis, especially multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients
Tang Shenjie told reporters that my country is a major drug-resistant country, with an incidence of drug-resistant as high as 7% to 8%. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is the biggest difficulty in the treatment of tuberculosis in my country.
Therefore, he believes that it is necessary to develop new drugs and better treatment plans for the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis, and shorten the course of treatment as much as possible.
"The current treatment course for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis requires at least two years, and some up to three years. Such a long course of treatment makes it difficult for tuberculosis patients to persist." Tang Shenjie said.
He believes that it is very necessary to shorten the course of treatment for tuberculosis through a combination of drugs. “Shortening the course of treatment can significantly improve patient compliance, thereby increasing the cure rate of tuberculosis.” Tang Shenjie said that the current treatment programs developed at home and abroad can already be used. The course of treatment for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is shortened to 9-12 months, which improves patient compliance and cure rate, and reduces mortality.
Tang Shenjie revealed that the 6-9-month course of treatment for sensitive tuberculosis has been used for more than 40 years, and his team is developing a 4-1/2-month course of treatment. Preliminary results have been released, which can basically reach the 6-9-month course of treatment. The program has the same therapeutic effect.
Tang Shenjie is optimistic about solving two major problems: on the one hand, advanced diagnostic methods such as molecular diagnosis and genetic diagnosis can be used to increase the diagnosis rate; on the other hand, new drugs and new programs can be used to increase the cure rate of tuberculosis and reduce tuberculosis. The mortality rate of TB has laid a good foundation for the ultimate control or elimination of tuberculosis.
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xia Jin Source: China Youth Daily