Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lima (Fides Service) - Annual World TB Day was held recently. In the last decade the number of TB cases registered in Peru dropped 40% from 50,000 in 1995 to 30,000 in 2005.
The number of mortal cases has also decreased. In 2005 1,112 Peruvians died of TB, almost half the 2,223 mortal cases in 1997. The infection is found mainly in Lima 54% and its port Callao. Peruvian health authorities admit that TB is closely connected with poverty and that prisons are the places where it is most widely diffused.
The government has opened special TB clinics in nine of the countries prisons, including San Juan de Lurigancho penitentiary which has 8,000 prisoners. The International Red Cross says Secondo Lurigancho gaol has the highest morbidity rate in the country because it has four times more people than the prison was built to hold. If in the rest of the country the ratio patient/person is 120 /100,000, in Lurigancho prison the ratio can be as high as 1,500/100,000.
The Peruvian ministry of health as tripled the sum of money assigned for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of TB. At the same time the UN Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria has said it will assign 32 million dollars to Peru before 2010. (AP) (25/3/2006 Agenzia Fides ; Righe:22 Parole:273)
