The Health Ministry is revising its tuberculosis agenda for the current Iranian year (began March 21), as the World Health Assembly (WHA) laid down a new strategy to fight the potentially serious infectious bacterial disease, Dr. Mahshid Nasehi, head of the Leprosy and Tuberculosis Office at the ministry said at the weekend. “TB is most prevalent in Sistan-Baluchistan and Golestan provinces due to malnutrition and proximity to high-risk states such as Afghanistan and Pakistan,” she told ISNA. The rate of tuberculosis in Iran is 21 per 100,000 people. It is 100 times more in prisons. The WHA, convened annually by the WHO at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva, passed a resolution in May 2014 approving the new post-2015 Global TB Strategy that ambitiously targets an 80% drop in new TB cases, and a 90% decline in people dying of TB by 2030. “Our plans are under review and revision based on the new agenda,” Nasehi noted.
