You're reading: WHO to grant $1 million to Ukraine for anti-TB medicines

The World Health Organization (WHO) will grant $1 million to Ukraine for the procurement of anti-tuberculosis medicines, regional adviser for health technology and pharmaceuticals at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, Kees de Joncheere, said at a press conference in Kyiv on March 22.

He said that the funds would be spent on "the treatment of patients in five regions of Ukraine next year."

According to de Joncheere, Ukraine is demonstrating stabilization and a slight reduction of the sickness and death rate of tuberculosis.

"But still there are factors that allow us saying that the TB epidemic is a serious problem for Ukraine today," he said.

Among such factors he mentioned were the development of forms of tuberculosis resistant to anti-TB medicines and frequent cases when patients suffer from both AIDS and TB.

In turn, the head of the parliamentary committee on public health, Tetiana Bakhteyeva, who also participated in the press conference, said that since 1997 the situation with TB has been considered as an epidemic in Ukraine.

"Every hour we discovered four people suffering from tuberculosis. Every hour one patient dies of tuberculosis in our country. We have lost 160,000 Ukrainians to tuberculosis over these years," she said.

Bakhteyeva noted that on Thursday the Verkhovna Rada had passed a new version of the anti-TB bill that foresees compulsory treatment and isolation of patients with the active form of TB.