Islamabad: On World Tuberculosis Day, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) encourages medical service providers and practitioners in Pakistan to enhance drug resistant tuberculosis (DRTB) diagnosis by increasing the use of GeneXpert diagnostic testing among suspect tuberculosis (TB) cases. Additionally, patients who do not show improvement with initial TB treatment need to be urgently referred to health facilities specialized in treating DRTB.

MSF medical team is concerned that DRTB patients referred to the MSF managed Programmatic Management of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (PMDT) site in Gujranwala district, Punjab, are only a fraction of people infected in the community and that a significant portion of DRTB cases is going undetected and untreated.