It is necessary to have medical examination made at the right time as Ukraine ranks second in Europe in the number of TB cases 
Yesterday SCM Foundation for Development of Ukraine made public the results of sociological survey "Perception of TB problem by the population of Ukraine: level of awareness, actualization and motivation aspects". 2,000 respondents were interrogated from all the Oblasts of Ukraine and 800 respondents in Donetskaya Oblast. The survey showed that the population is not very much concerned with the mentioned problem; they do not have medical examinations made and do not believe in the possibility to be completely cured. 
 
Yesterday the specialists from SCM Foundation for Development of Ukraine made public the results of sociological survey "Perception of TB problem by the population of Ukraine: level of awareness, actualization and motivation aspects" and made the conclusion: although the level of awareness of the population of the danger of the disease is quite high there are few people who wish to get medical treatment. The reason for lack of faith lies in the poor efficiency of the state health system and in poor financing of TB facilities.  
 
Tuberculosis, or TB, is a deadly infectious bacterial disease transmitted from person to person via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease. Recently the scales and spread of TB have grown into an epidemic. TB doctors record more than 40 TB cases annually. At present we have 86 incidents for 100 people and it is getting higher by 10% every year. The biggest number of TB incidents is recorded in Khersonska, Mykolayivska, Donetska and Kharkivska Oblasts. The incidence rate in these arrears is 1.5-2 times higher in comparison with the average incidence rate in Ukraine.
 
This proves that the anti-TB facilities have been financed on the leftover principle for many years, anti-TB programs have not been implemented and TB hospitals have not been upgraded as compared with other hospitals and no modern equipment have been installed and no young TB specialists have come to work to the TB hospitals.
 
However, the biggest problem is that the potential patients are not examined and do not have the lungs examined and as the result the diagnosis is made when it is too late. Preventive measures could help discover TB at early stages of disease and stop its spreading in the body. The TB infected people can be somehow controlled when they are in hospital; however, it is not possible at all to control the non-residents (let alone street people, whose number is 800-900 thousand in Ukraine and 10-30 thousand in Kyiv).
 
To the words of the Director of the Foundation for Development of Ukraine Anatoliy Zabolotnyy, since the year 2007 they have started a comprehensive program on spreading the information on TB and preventing TB infection, which is to last for 5 years. The key areas of activity of the project, the cost of which is 100 million hryvnias, include measures on promoting healthy lifestyle, informing the population on TB through mass media, placing the information in health care organizations, at companies, at schools and prisons and implementing national hot line and special site highlighting the problem of combating TB.

Oleg Ponamaryov "Khrschtyk"
http://www.kreschatic.kiev.ua/ua/3149/art/1190748798.html
Kyiv Municipal Newspaper "Kreschatyk"
26/09/2007