KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ today said the government would manage the required resources for the elimination of tuberculosis from the country.

The government would provide resources to make the national campaign to eliminate tuberculosis a success, he said in a message of best wishes on the occasion of World Tuberculosis Day.

“After making required policies, strategies, and plans, the campaign against tuberculosis has come into implementation at 25 local levels under the leadership of the local government in the previous fiscal year. It aims to expand the campaign to all 753 local levels within four years,” he said, adding that the government is committed to implementing all commitments to end the disease made by the government.

The Prime Minister shared that the campaign against tuberculosis will be expedited through the multisectoral partnership, and by mobilizing required resources after managing a high-level mechanism at the federal, provincial, and local levels.

He has also appealed to all national and international non-governmental organizations, donors, and other stakeholders to help Nepal with the campaign to eliminate infectious diseases.

Similarly, Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Population Dev Kumari Guragain stressed the need for making and implementing policies and strategies to eliminate the disease in line with the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Multisectoral Accountability Framework.

The Ministry has been at work to deal with all sorts of challenges and problems in the way of identifying, and treating the disease by making short, mid, and long-term plans and strategies, she said.

The Day is being observed across the globe including Nepal today.

The slogan for the Day is ‘Yes, We Can End Tuberculosis (We Can End TB). In Nepal, around 15 people lost their lives to the disease on a daily basis, and over 180 people fall ill with it, according to the WHO.

In Nepal, around 117,000 people are living with TB, according to the National Tuberculosis Prevalence Survey 2018-19, carried out jointly by the National TB program, the Government of Nepal, with support from the WHO, and other partners.